WELLINGTON (AFP) - Old fashioned sleuthing got some help from new technology when New Zealand police nabbed an incompetent thief with the help of Internet networking site Facebook.

The 21-year-old local man was caught by a security camera removing his balaclava during a botched attempt to break into the safe of a bar in the southern tourist centre of Queenstown last week.

Local police posted the surveillance video on Facebook, which led to the identification and arrest this week of the man, who apparently took off the balaclava after working up a sweat trying to break into the safe.

Queenstown police said the arrest was their first using Facebook.

“He was identified from members of the public viewing him on Facebook, and also seeing him on TV after the Facebook images were displayed on the news,” Constable Sean Drader said.

Drader said it was unusual to obtain footage of a burglar in action.

“He can’t be too experienced because he’s pretty young,” he was reported saying by Christchurch newspaper, The Press.

The bar’s assistant manager, Mel Kelly, described the bungling burglar as a “very silly young boy”.

“The room is really small and it gets really hot in there at the best of times,” Kelly said.

“Clearly, he didn’t realise there was a video camera there till the last moment. He looks round and sees it and there’s just a shocked look of ‘gutted’. His face definitely drops.”

An Australian lawyer served legal documents on a couple through Facebook last year in what was thought to be a world first.

Facebook was used to track down the pair after they defaulted on a large loan and the Australian courts gave the lawyer permission to use the social networking site.