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A thief was arrested seconds after snatching a woman’s mobile phone because he had accidentally ran into a police station.
Surveillance footage, filmed on March 31 in China, shows the man sprinting straight into the Longgang District Police Station in Shenzhen while trying to run away from the victim.
The man was caught on the spot and escorted into the station by officers.
The clip, posted by Pear Video on Chinese social media on April 8, showed a woman playing on her phone as she waited by a traffic junction in Longgang district.
A man suddenly approached the woman and snatched the mobile phone from her hands.
The woman chased after him immediately, but she tumbled on the wet floor.
He quickly ran past a metal gate of a compound, which turned out to be a police station.
A police officer stopped him as the woman claimed that he had taken her phone.
A police officer told a reporter from Pear Video that the suspect was not familiar with the neighbourhood, thus he ran into their police station without realising.
The officer said: 'The suspect did not know that he had run into the police station. He was spotted by our colleagues immediately and was escorted into the station.'
The suspect, surnamed Chang, had only arrived in Shenzhen recently, according to a report by state media China Global Television Network.
The 38-year old man, struggling to find a job and a place to stay, is not familiar with the city, said the report.
He has been detained on suspicion of theft.
The man is believed to be a frustrated migrant worker who, like millions of others, went to Shenzhen to look for work.
Shenzhen has the largest population of migrant workers in China, according to National Bureau of Statistics.
Over 6.1 million of workers from rural area have moved to the manufacturing hub for jobs, accounting for nearly 60 per cent of the population.