13
6
This is the moment a nine-year-old boy armed with a replica gun tries to hold up the musclebound owner of a jewellery store.
The bizarre incident was caught on CCTV security cameras inside the shop in the city of Moreno in the eastern Argentinian province of Buenos Aires.
Store owner Nicolas Garcia said although the shop was closed the door was open when the youngster walked in and he had decided to see what the young client wanted.
The boy is seen on CCTV walking up to the counter and started talking about jewellery before suddenly producing what appeared to be a handgun from his trousers.
The video footage shows the youngster place the gun on the counter, pointing straight at Mr Garcia, in an apparent attempted armed robbery.
But Mr Garcia walked straight around the counter, grabbed the boy, marched him out of the shop and threw him back onto the street.
He said: “The kid told me to give him everything, to not be a moron because he will ‘burn’ me.
“I thought it was a toy gun, I could not imagine that he was talking to me seriously.”
The boy’s 28-year-old mother, who recognised him from the CCTV footage, confirmed the gun was a fake and said she threw it away when she found out what had happened.
The woman, who declined to be named, said she was a single mother of six who raised her children on her own.
She said the boy no longer went to school after he was expelled last year for dropping his trousers at a classmate.
Mr Garcia reported the attempted robber at his local police station after he received threats from relatives of the boy. Cops told him the boy was under the age of criminality but they are investigating whether an adult was behind his actions.