This is the moment two robbers used teargas to attack a clerk at a parcel delivery service who is really the mastermind behind the raid.

The three reportedly came up with the idea for the scheme which involved the 22-year-old employee of the firm being fake-attacked with tear gas, before returning to surrender and allowing the other two to make away with stolen cash.

CCTV footage from the delivery service in Noginsk, Russia, shows the moment two masked individuals pretending to be robbers armed with a gas canister as they enter the business while the one working behind the counter gets down and hides.

One of the purported thieves sprays the employee while the other picks up a box reportedly containing RUB 140,000 (GBP 1,560) before the two masked ‘burglars’ flee.

But a police investigation soon found that the seemingly assaulted employee was behind it all.

The head of the press service of Russia’s Main Directorate of Internal Affairs for the Moscow Region, Tatyana Petrova, said in a statement obtained by Newsflash: “During the course of the investigation into the circumstances of the occurrence, the operatives discovered that the employee was the mastermind behind the heist.

“He informed his friends about the existence of a significant sum of money at the cargo delivery service’s office and declared that now is the time to commit theft.

“They intended to split the money and spend it on personal expenses.”

The police reportedly apprehended two accomplices in the robbery, aged 17 and 22, from the Moscow region.

During a personal search, one of them was discovered to be in possession of stolen money as well as a gas canister used in the execution of a criminal act, which was confiscated.