Two brazen conmen have been jailed after posing as drunken revellers to pickpocket pub-goers by hugging and dancing with them on the street.<br /><br />Abdul Boychaala, 30, and Hussen Ehab, 26, preyed mostly on sozzled students to steal their wallets and mobile phones.<br /><br />CCTV shows the pair pretending to dance and hug unsuspecting late-night revellers as they walked through Nottingham city centre.<br /><br />After locking legs and forcing them off balance the pair removed mobile phones from their victims’ pockets and sauntered away from the scene.<br /><br />The victims only realised their valuables were missing after Boychaala and Ehab had disappeared.<br /><br />Police discovered they had struck seven times in Nottingham between January 18 and February 1 last year.<br /><br />Both men were arrested and admitted conspiracy to steal in relation to seven offences in Nottingham – two in the early hours of January 18, one on January 25, three on January 31 and one on February 1.<br /><br />They also admitted targeting revellers in Liverpool on September 13 where victims had initially not reported the thefts.<br /><br />Boychaala and Ehab, both of Radford, Nottingham, were both jailed for 28 months at Nottingham Crown Court on Friday (30/7).<br /><br />Detective Constable Richard Evans, of Nottinghamshire Police, said: “Boychaala and Ehab are brazen and calculating thieves who were led by their own greed and recklessness to commit a string of very serious offences.<br /><br />“Their preferred method may have appeared clumsy, but it was a finely-honed and effective distraction technique that allowed them to steal many thousands of pounds worth of mobile phones.<br /><br />“This offending took place again and again as the pair grew in confidence – convinced that they would continue to get away with what they had been doing.<br /><br />“By thoroughly reviewing this evidence against witness statements we were able to build such an overwhelming case against these two men that they had little choice but to plead guilty.”
