Instant karma for phone snatcher after video call captures his face

A prolific smartphone thief has been identified after stealing a mobile while its owner was on a video call – allowing the owner to see the thief.

The victim had been walking in the Usaquen neighbourhood of Bogota, the capital of Colombia, on February 9 when their phone was snatched.

The video shows the suspect looking at the screen of the device after he stole it from its owner, who was waiting to cross the street at a pedestrian crossing.

The victim said: ‘He came by on a motorcycle and stole my phone. I had headphones on and I was able to say that I had been robbed.

‘I got home as quickly as possible to lock down all the confidential information I had on the device: my cards and everything else.’

Since the video was published, many other people have come forward saying they were victims of the same man.

The suspect, despite wearing a motorcycle helmet, was pictured after the phone owner managed to record the call.

There have been no updates as to whether the police have arrested anyone or not but local media reports say that there were over 129,000 thefts of this kind in Bogota in 2024.

Phone thefts are common in big cities – in London alone, some 78,000 people had phones or bags stolen from them on British streets as of March 2024.

That is a rise of more than 150% on the 31,000 ‘snatch thefts’ in the 12 months before, according to data from the Crime Survey for England and Wales.

Figures also show that four in five police investigations were closed before a suspect was even found and just 0.8% of ‘theft from the person’ complaints resulted in a charge.

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