UK Police Department Releases A Video Of The Worst Art Thief Of All Time

West Midlands police in Birmingham, UK have posted this hilarious video of a thief trying to steal a commemorative WWI piece of artwork to YouTube.

Spotted by Digg, the video is from security cameras at the Castle Fine Art Gallery on the 17th of August. According to the West Midlands Police website, the gallery staff stopped the thief as he left and recovered the poorly concealed artwork.

The man in the video, however, left unpunished. Police have now released the security footage on Wednesday to try and discover the would-be thief's identity.

Investigating officer PC Patrick Higgins said in a statement: "The thief was quite optimistic in his attempts to conceal the artwork, valued at several hundred pounds, but fortunately he made off empty handed. We are now keen to identify the man in the CCTV to prevent him from turning his attention to smaller objects."

Watch the full (unintentionally funny) video below.

And in case you were curious, this is what he was trying to steal.