Macaques at Labrador Park steal iPhone from unattended bag, play with it & rip phone casing apart

Monkeying around.

Ashley Tan | February 06, 2021, 06:37 PM

Wildlife shenanigans are always hilarious and a sight to see.

That is, until said wildlife poaches one of your belongings.

And while food and snacks are things often stolen by animals, one man at Labrador Park recently had the rather unfortunate luck of having one of his valuables pilfered by a macaque.

Phone was unattended in his bag

A visitor at Labrador Park, Bryan Cambo, shared with Mothership that he only arrived at the scene after the monkeys had gotten ahold of the iPhone.

This was at around 10am on Feb. 6.

Cambo and his friends noticed a commotion along the boardwalk, and was informed by another bystander that the long-tailed macaques had stolen a guy's phone when it was left unattended in his bag.

The guy — who appeared to be in his teens to early twenties — and his friends were in the midst of figuring out how to retrieve his phone from the feisty creatures.

Photos Cambo snapped of the curious macaques showed them chilling and fiddling with the device.

Photo from Bryan Cambo

Photo from Bryan Cambo

Photo from Bryan Cambo

Photo from Bryan Cambo

The monkeys had even managed to remove the phone casing, and had ripped it apart.

Photo from Bryan Cambo

Video showing a macaque chewing on the plastic phone casing:

Gif from Bryan Cambo

An "odd" sighting

Amongst the crowd that had gathered, some photographed the monkey's antics, while one bystander waved his umbrella at the macaques, perhaps in an attempt to scare them into dropping the phone.

"Not too sure of his intentions here," Cambo added.

Gif from Bryan Cambo

Cambo said that the man tried calling his phone as well, but to no avail.

Soon, the crowd dissipated, and the man and his friends were left trying to figure out what to do.

"After a couple of minutes, two more monkeys appeared and started walking towards us, which was when we backed off and left. When I turned back to look at the group of guys, I saw a monkey following them," Cambo said.

It is uncertain if the man managed to recover his phone.

Said Cambo of the curious incident:

"It was a really odd experience. It’s one of those weird things you will remember for a long time haha."

Top photos from Bryan Cambo