NEW YORK — Fred, the Undercover Kitten who gained fame earlier this year by posing as a would-be patient to help police nab a phony veterinarian, has died, authorities said Friday.

The 15-month-old tabby was killed Wednesday when he wandered into traffic and was run over by a car, according to the Brooklyn District Attorney's Office.

Fred was a rescued stray when he was enlisted by law enforcement in February.

An undercover investigator posing as Fred's owner summoned the suspect to an apartment rigged with a hidden camera and pretended the kitten needed to be neutered. The man was arrested as he left carrying Fred in a box and cash for the operation.

Fred got his due at a news conference, where he sported a tiny badge on his collar.

"He's pretty easygoing, a real Brooklyn guy," his caretaker, prosecutor Carol Moran, said at the time.

Fred received a Law Enforcement Appreciation Award and was honored at an adopt-a-thon benefit hosted by Mary Tyler Moore and Bernadette Peters. He had been "preparing for a new career in education," with a "significant role" in a classroom program that teaches children how to care for animals, the district attorney's office said.

Fred ran out Moran's back door into her yard Wednesday while Moran was attending to two dogs.

"He had to have hopped several fences" to escape to the street, Moran said. Neighbors found his body in the road later that morning.