Footage shows a thief sneakily swapping his bag with another containing a £1,700 laptop inside a busy City of London pub. 

Mohamed Hade, 32, sat alone next to a group of people enjoying an evening drink in the venue on Farrington Street before substituting the bags under the table. 

The Algerian targeted the venue at 8.30pm on Thursday March 19, when it was packed with boozy City workers. 

Afterwards, he took the satchel containing the laptop and walked out onto the street. 

But there his luck ran out, with plain-clothed officers spotting him leaving the pub with a different bag to the one he went in with. 

As Hade headed towards New Bridge Street in the direction of another bar, officers jumped in and arrested him for theft. 

The victim was about to report the theft to the police when officers turned up with his recovered belongings at the pub and they were returned to him. 

Mohamed Hade, 32, sat alone next to a group of people enjoying an evening drink in the venue on Farrington Street before swapping the bags (circled) under the table

The Algerian was sentenced to three months in prison 

Sergeant James Wood, of the Proactive Acquisitive Crime Team at the City of London Police, said: ‘Opportunistic crimes such as bag and phone thefts can severely impact victims.

‘The Proactive Acquisitive Crime Team’s expertise in spotting criminals preying on people out in the City have resulted in a number of arrests and prosecutions.

‘We will continue to disrupt and target these criminals with our plain-clothed operations, intelligence work and the use of our extensive CCTV network across the City, which also assists us in identifying offenders.

‘People shouldn’t worry about having their bags stolen while out, but professional criminals will seize any opportunity to take your belongings. We urge vigilance and to report anything suspicious to the police.’

Hade, of Brent, north London, pleaded guilty at Central London Magistrates’ Court to one count of theft from the person and was sentenced to three months in prison.

Thefts of luxury items are often carried out by organised criminal groups, with Algerian nationals featuring prominently among suspects ending up in court.

Data compiled by the Met and Apple suggests 28 per cent of phones stolen in Britain end up in Algeria, where they are often sold on in black market bazaars.

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Mugging kit of the Algerian phone-snatchers targeting City workers for items they can sell back home

Robbers – some of whom fly in specifically for crime sprees – typically target wealthy Londoners and visitors in high-end areas of the capital, with pubs a popular hunting ground. 

Dr Simon Harding, of the National Centre for Gang Research, explained that sophisticated gangs target City workers wearing certain items of clothing and sometimes even imitate their style to blend in.

He said: ‘They will be able to assess and scrutinise somebody within seconds. They will know whether they are likely to fight back and whether they will pursue.

‘There is definitely a particular way some people present, as being affluent, a little bit nonchalant, carefree, and it presents naivete and ignorance.

‘And the people doing this will not look like your average street person, they’ll be smart.’

One trio, Adam Zawi, Oussama Fadage, and Aouidj Abderaouf, were jailed for between 36 weeks and a year after being caught on camera swiping rucksacks filled with £4,000 worth of laptops, tablets and headphones. 

A furious judge described the men – who had arrived by small boat from France – as committed criminals who had abused Britain’s kindness. Zawi, who claimed to be 21, was staying in a taxpayer-funded hotel at the time of the thefts in July.

Theft operations can be vast in scale, with 1,000 phones recovered last year at a warehouse near Heathrow. Police also arrested a ‘mule’ who had travelled between London and Algeria more than 200 times in two years.

While gangs stealing UK phones for sale in Algeria are often made up of Algerian nationals, the profits to be made there mean other nationalities are inevitably involved too.