An armed robber was caught after he dropped his gun and took off his balaclava to pick it up after attempting to hold up a London betting shop.

It was as if the dozy robber had directly copied the move from Guy Ritchie’s comedy ‘Snatch’ where two robbers remove their masks immediately after a flopped raid at a bookmakers.

Derek Rossi, 58, tried to hold up the Ladbrokes in Holborn with a sawn-off shotgun hidden in an umbrella.

He carried out the attempted burglary at 8am on Monday November 4 last year at the betting shop located in the busy business area.

When staff could not open the safe, Rossi fled the betting shop empty handed and then accidentally fired his antique shotgun.

He then dropped the gun in the street during the raid and took off his balaclava to pick it up – before trying to flee on a bike.

The Ladbrokes is located just metres from Holborn underground station and on a busy commercial road next to outlets such as Subway and Boots.

When Rossi removed the balaclava, his face was seen by dozens of witnesses and Rossi, of Finsbury Park, north London, was arrested.

Rossi was charged with attempted robbery and weapons offences, and pleaded guilty at Blackfriars Crown Court last Thursday.

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As the city of Atlanta began to thaw out from Tuesday’s ice storm, 34-year-old Louis Mitchell set out to victimize those who had to abandon their cars on the highway.

“Couldn’t ask for a worse time to try to prey on people,” said Sgt. Greg Lyon.

According to police, Mitchell stole a tow truck from Loganville, then used it to steal at least five cars that were still on the road Thursday.

“He was taking vehicles off the highway and bringing them to another house around the corner,” said Lyon.

Police said they found four stolen vehicles there and said Mitchell paid residents to help store the cars in the backyard.

Channel 2’s Carl Willis visited the house on Washington Street in Southeast Atlanta.

“I didn’t know he was stealing them,” one resident told Willis.

No one in the home was charged in the case as of Friday night.

Police said Officer Jamael Logan became suspicious when he spotted Mitchell in an unmarked tow truck with temporary tags.

He was towing a 1996 Toyota Camry that had been abandoned since Tuesday on I-85 near I-285 in DeKalb County.

Logan tried to make a traffic stop but police said Mitchell and a passenger jumped out of the truck, while it was still in gear, and crashed it into a barrier wall.

A K-9 unit and footprints left in the snow led police to a home on Crew Street.

Neighbor Rudena Dillard said she was concerned because the suspect could have come to her doorstep.

Police said Mitchell ditched his shirt in the bushes and got into a home where he tried to blend in by sitting on the residents’ couch.

“He basically knocked on the door came inside of the house and said ‘Hey, let me in, let me sit down and if anyone comes in tell them you know me,'” said Lyon. “Of course immediately they said ‘We don’t know this guy,’ and that turned out to be the driver of the vehicle.”

Police said Mitchell’s boots were still soaking wet from running in the snow.

He was arrested, but police are still searching for the other man who was riding with him.

Investigators later discovered several fake documents from the State of New York Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles in the tow truck.

The documents listed vin numbers belonging to other vehicles that were reported stolen on Jan. 30 out of City of Atlanta and DeKalb County.

Police also said they found several documents indicating the cars may have been stolen for sale at a scrap yard.

In a breath-taking act of criminal genius, Mohammed Omar Gulzar, known as Bobby, employed 25 people to file fake insurance claims after their bus collided with a Vauxhall Zafira in Sheffield, South Yorkshire.

From the Daily Mail:

A gang that deliberately crashed a 12-tonne bus carrying 26 passengers as part of a thousand-pound ‘crash-for-cash’ scam has been jailed.

Mohammed Omar Gulzar, 31, devised at least 39 collisions across South Yorkshire to claim up to £500,000 from insurance companies.

Working with a team of actors and fraudulent company City Claims 4 U, Gulzar filed dozens of claims for injuries such as whiplash for hundreds of pounds at a time.

The most elaborate stunt over the seven months between January and July 2011 involved Gulzar and his employee Shoaib Nawaz, 25, filling a single-decker First Mainline bus with co-conspirators, before driver Adam Herbert – who was in on the plot – deliberately crashed into a Vauxhall Safira.

Genuine passengers were bemused as people threw themselves to the floor, and one man ran into the windscreen, after the low-speed crash, Sheffield Crown Court heard.

Afterwards, 25 people made claims for whiplash.

Sentencing the gang at Sheffield Crown Court yesterday, Judge Graham Robinson said: ‘The idea that cash-for-crash is a victimless crime needs to be rebuffed immediately.

He added: ‘The fact that this criminal enterprise was a failure does not make the offences less serious and the sentence I give will hopefully serve as a deterrent to anyone considering taking part in a cash for crash scam.

‘Cash for crash is not a crime that pays.’

Gulzar and Nawaz were sentenced to four-and-a-half years and three-and-a-half years, respectively for conspiring to defraud insurance companies between January 1 and July 31, 2011.

Bus driver Adam Herbert, 26, was jailed for 20 months.

Gulzar, his employee Shoaib Nawaz, 24, and two other men – Javed Khan, 46, and Sami Selam, 36 – were found guilty of conspiracy to defraud following a six-week trial in September 2013.

Sheffield Crown Court heard police enquiries began after the smash at the junction of Scott Road and Ellesmere Road in Sheffield.

Enquiries by bus company First revealed that there had been a spike in passenger numbers on that particular day.

Michael Bay is working on securing the rights to the men’s story, for a big budget Jew movie about the diabolical bravery and audacity of these Muslim bus-crashers.  The part of Mohammed Omar Gulzar, the quick-witted mastermind behind the whole operation, is being solicited to Robert Downy Jr., with Ben Affleck expected to sign on for the role of Shoaib Mawaz.  The producers have their eye on Lindsey Lohan for the female lead, a spunky abused White teenager forced into sex slavery and prostitution by the clever Islamic protagonists.

Footprints in the snow led to the arrest of one of the men who allegedly pulled a gun on a Vito’s Pizza and Subs deliveryman, robbed him, and then took off in his car last week.

According to the affidavit for probable cause, 19-year-old Larry D. Washington, Jr., and two other suspects robbed the victim at gunpoint shortly after 4 a.m. on January 3.

The deliveryman told police he went to deliver food to a home in the 5300-block of Winter Street when one of the men pointed a gun at him and stole his wallet, along with the food. The three suspects then ran to the victim’s car and drove off in it.

Police found the stolen car parked on the side of the road in the 4700-block of Reed Street. Police saw two sets of footprints in the snow that led from the passenger side of the car to a home. Officers followed the tracks to the home and the homeowner then allowed them to search her house.

According to the probable cause, police found Washington and another man in the home. Police determined that the other man lived at the home, but Washington did not.

Officers also found a bag of food from Vito’s, along with the victim’s driver’s license in the bottom of the bag.

The other man told police in an interview that Washington came to his house with a gun and asked him to hide it when police arrived.

Police said the shoes Washington was wearing matched the tread pattern in the snow which led from the stolen car to the home.

Washington was arrested and charged with Robbery, Defendant Armed OR Bodily Injury Results, a class B felony.

The investigation is ongoing.

An alleged thief surprised police by returning to the scene of the crime after forgetting something he apparently was not willing to live without.

Eloghosa Adolor had made a clean getaway. The 21-year-old is accused of walking into a Kohl’s in Natomas Sunday afternoon and walking out with stuff he didn’t pay for.

When he was stopped by security, Sacramento police say he allegedly assaulted a loss prevention officer.

That’s when Adolor made a run for it. By the time police got here, he was long gone. But after realizing he had dropped his cellphone during the alleged felonious frenzy, Adolor made a move for his smart phone that, well, wasn’t so smart.

“Really? That’s kind of stupid,” said one shopper.

Adolor returned for it; and, when he did, police were waiting.

“That’s ridiculous. He should’ve just kept going. To come back is ridiculous,” said another shopper.

“If you’re gonna try and get away with something like that, why would you come back for your smart phone?”

“It’s just ridiculous. It’s just one of those stupid human stories where the guy that fumbles goes back to the scene of the crime. It just amazes me.”

Police were amazed and thankful. Adolor had not only lost his phone, but now his freedom — busted for felony robbery and battery.

This alleged criminal nearly got away until he dialed up a decision that delivered him back to the scene of the crime.

Adolor is still without his smart phone tonight, while he is being held at Sacramento County Jail on $60,000 bail.

Police have arrested three suspects accused of robbing a pizza delivery driver of chicken wings Tuesday night in Donora.

According to police, the incident was reported just before 10 p.m. on Short Street. A driver, who works for Italian Pizza Village in Belle Vernon, told police he was approached by three men who demanded money.

The driver told detectives that the men searched his pants pockets and vehicle for money, but found nothing. The driver said the men took off with the his chicken wings, valued at almost $18, when he pulled out a gun.

Police said the driver was able to give a detailed description of the suspects. Tyler Hall, 18, and Dorian Ellis, 18, were arrested a short time later while they were eating the wings on a street corner. The third suspect, a juvenile from Donora, fled the scene on foot. He was later arrested in Ohio, police said.

Hall and Ellis are charged with robbery, criminal conspiracy, terroristic threats and loitering/prowling at night, police said.

Hall and Ellis were sent to the Washington County Correctional Facility, each in lieu of $25,000 straight cash bond. They face preliminary hearings Nov. 27 in Washington County Central Court.