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This is the moment a brave man confronted an alleged phone thief wielding a massive knife in central London.
The man with a knife – dressed all in black with his faced covered and wearing a bicycle helmet – was waving the blade in the air as passers by pointed after him.
As he turned his bike in the middle of Tottenham Court Road, a Scottish man ran up and confronted him.
The person filming could be heard saying anxiously ‘oh, that’s a big knife’.
As the Scot continues to yell at the knifeman, another member of the public throws a plastic bottle full of liquid at the bike.
A man with a knife – dressed all in black with his faced covered and wearing a bicycle helmet – was waving the blade in the air as passers by pointed after him
This is the moment a brave man confronts an alleged phone thief wielding a massive knife
Social media users rallied behind the hero, with one saying: ‘Rambo knew he was 100 per cent gonna get knocked out on camera.’
‘If you have a knife and there’s a Scottish bloke still ready to fight you, run, run and swim’ another said.
MailOnline has contacted The Met Police for comment.
It comes as central London is plagued by phone snatchers.
Footage filmed by an internet streamer shows a woman standing close to an Oxford Circus Street exit on her way to work looking at her phone.
Behind her a man on an e-bike silently approached her and grabbed her phone out of her hand before escaping.
Moment the bike thief snatches the phone on his e-bike near Oxford Circus tube station
The phone grabber closes in on his silent e-bike clad all in black
Visibly shocked, the woman jumped slightly and then stood rooted to the spot in disbelief.
Britain, and in particular London, is in the midst of a phone grabbing crisis.
Criminal gangs target members of the public who are distracted by something on their phone and then swoop on them.
Often the gangs use electric vehicles such as e-bikes and e-scooters because they are silent and fast, maximising their chances of snatching the phone and getting away.
In the underworld the stealing of phones is big business, and many handsets end up abroad, where they are broken down for parts and sold on.
MailOnline revealed how the Chinese city of Shenzhen is at the heart of a lucrative and illicit international stolen phones black market.
Owing to the city’s casual approach to enforcing criminal property laws, gangs can sell the phones on for cut prices or take the phones apart and flog parts.
Due to the city’s focus on technology, it has become known as China’s ‘Silicon Valley’.
Dress all in black the thief nears his victim outside of an entrance to Oxford Circus tube
Across the city their are vast markets, some lawful and other illegal, offering to sell gadgets, including huge numbers of stolen mobile phones from Britain.
Despite the extensive amount of CCTV covering London’s busiest areas, gangs target people in those locations precisely because they think they will be more safe and have their guard down.
The gangs also operate at music festivals and events where large crowds make it difficult to track movements.
According to Freedom of Information requests submitted by the company Get Phone Repairs, in London Westminster, Southwark and Camden are the worst areas.
Their data shows that in 2023 in London alone, 52,144 mobiles were stolen.
They say that averages as 5.93 phones stolen for every 1000 people in the capital city worth £18.5 million for the year.
The Metropolitan Police published statistics on mobile snatches for January 2022 to January 2023 there were nearly 90,000 thefts.
Of the 88,949 only 1,915 were recovered and returned to their owner, meaning more than 87,000 phones could have been shipped abroad in just one year from London.
