Video shared to social media showed a man wearing all-black clothing grabbing an elderly man who is on the floor on a green space across from J & M Jewellers on Birmingham’s Warstone Lane.
The thug is joined by a fellow thief, who can be seen shoving the elderly man to the floor as he tried to get up during the incident, which is understood to have taken place on the afternoon of April 6.
The two thieves can be seen running towards a grey Volvo SUV as a crowd of people who witnessed the attack chases them.
As the video ends, one thief can be seen running alongside the getaway car as it pulls away.
Reports indicate that the thieves were unsuccessful in their attempt, though this has not yet been confirmed. MailOnline has contacted West Midlands Police for comment.
The incident is one of many seen across the UK, particularly in , .
The Met says that incidents have halved since officers began conducting undercover sting operations in the West End last year.
Plain-clothed officers volunteered to go out wearing valuable timepieces after analysis showed thieves tend to target well-heeled victims leaving pubs and clubs between 11pm and 4am on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights in Soho, also part of the Westminster district.
Over two operations, which ran from October 2022 to December 2022 and March 2023 to October 2023, 27 people were arrested and subsequently charged.
Of these, 21 were convicted – with 14 sentenced to a total of 26 years in prison.
Abdi Malik Mohamed, 20, joined Omar Hassan Hussein, 25, Sayid Mohamed, 22, and Abdullahi Mohammed Osman, 22, in attempting to yank the watch from Chris Hall’s wrist in the Soho area of London on 27 October 2022.
Dramatic CCTV footage shows the moment Hussein shields Mr Hall – the alias of the undercover cop – from the rest of the group who have followed him from the Blue Posts pub on Berwick Street where he pretended to be hopelessly drunk.
Hussein then clearly tries to grab the watch, while the others pile in.
Other undercover officers then sprint in, catching the thieves in the act.
All the thieves were detained and arrested except Mohamed, who calmly walked away in his distinctive white shoes with black laces.
He later returned to the scene of the crime without his jacket on, where he spoke to Sayid Mohamed.
Officers recognised him from his shoes and he was arrested.
Paul Thorpe, a former watch dealer who now runs a YouTube channel dedicated to luxury watches, told The Times: ‘People are just worried right now. They see their luxury watches as a potential mugging waiting to happen.
‘Why would you put your life on the line in the big cities? Theft is not the biggest factor to falling demand but it’s a contributing factor.’