Video of Asian man pranking Nairobi CBD robbers goes viral

A man of Asian origin pranked a number of petty thieves in Nairobi, catching in the act as they attempted to snatch his dummy mobile phone.

The content creator had teamed up with friends who helped record the prank as they drove along the streets of the CBD.

The video which was shot in May 2021 has now gone viral attracting over 100,000 views as Kenyans share their experiences in the mercy of Nairobi hoodlums.

“This is the Nairobi CBD area and we are going to show you how phone snatchers will take my phone,” the prankster stated.

He held a dummy phone in his hand and rested his arm on the window such that the phone was visible from outside the car.

It didn’t take long before the first miscreant saw an opportunity to snatch the cell phone from his hand.

All the thieves had similar approaches where they waited until they had enough cover to get as close as possible to the phone before going for the kill.

Many would hide behind another pedestrian and in other cases, a gang of thieves would coordinate among themselves on how to attack.

Since the Asian prankster had already anticipated their moves and was tracking them, he was able to retract his hand before the robbers could snatch the dummy phone.

He also had a taser ready in case the prank got out of hand.

One of the robbers tried to snatch the phone despite a police officer being just metres away.

While filming the prank, more than 20 people cautioned him to take better care of his ‘phone’ and not to expose it in the streets as he was doing, not knowing it was staged.

The video goes to show how unsafe Nairobi can be in broad daylight as Kenyans go about their daily activities.

An Asian man pranking phone snatchers in Nairobi Pulse Live Kenya

Recently a traffic officer had his phone snatched by a gang that was riding in a motorcycle at Roysambu.

Where you are likely to lose your phone in Nairobi

Traffic jams are regarded as the ideal chance for phone snatchers on a number of streets and roads throughout the city.

Some of the most notorious roads include River road, Kirinyaga road, Tom Mboya street, Ronald Ngala street and Racecourse road.

Haile Sellasie Avenue, Landhies Road, Jogoo Road are also danger zones because there is always slow traffic and the robbers can easily escape into Country Bus Station, Muthurwa, or Burma market to evade capture by traffic police on the road or angry citizens.