Store Owner Tells Robbers to Come Back Later. They Did

They're either the world's most accommodating criminals, the greediest, the most optimistic, or the dumbest—or maybe all of the above. The BBC reports on 15 tense minutes Saturday for a Belgian e-cigarette shop owner, identified simply as Didier, when a half-dozen wannabe armed robbers showed up midafternoon at his store outside Charleroi. "I told them clearly that 3pm is not the best time to hold up a store," Didier tells RTL, via CNN. Instead, he managed to stammer out, if they came back later on, he'd possibly have many more euros to hand over. To his surprise, they agreed that was a good idea and left. The cops didn't buy Didier's story that the suspects would actually return, but they did—not once, but twice.

First the suspects showed back up at around 5:30pm, and Didier shook his head at their too-early return. "I berated them, saying, 'You have to buy a watch,'" he says, noting he told them to come back at 6:30, when the store would close for the evening. The hopefuls were back at Didier's door an hour later—and plainclothes cops were there to nab them. "It's like it was a comedy," the incredulous shop owner tells the BBC. "They're being called the worst robbers in Belgium." Five of the hopeful criminals were arrested, including a minor; the sixth managed to get away. "They weren't the brightest," Didier tells RTL. (At least they weren't trying to throw bricks at bulletproof glass.)