I’d be willing to bet that it’s not the same cat.
It’s been identified by the chip in it’s neck.
Has to be the same cat.
I fostered a cat once. Six years later I got her back. She immediately recognized me and the house.
When I picked her up the second time she cried in the cat box all the way home. When I got to the door she stopped crying and she ran straight into the house. She walked around, sniffing every corner. Then she curled right up and fell asleep.
I did not know that cats knew how to transfer implanted locator chips from one cat to another. They have the technology but not the dexterity to perform the actual surgery.