Dramatic footage shows the moment an Ecuadorean TV presenter was held up by a man with a gun while preparing to go live on air.
Sports reporter Diego Ordinola was confronted by the masked man, who pointed a gun directly at him and demanded his phone outside the stadium of Ecuadorean Serie A football club Barcelona SC.
The cameraman who was working with Ordinola at the time, and managed to record the whole shocking incident, eventually had to hand over his mobile phone to the robber, before the man then sprinted off to get on a waiting motorcycle.
Diego then later shared the footage on his personal Twitter account, writing: "We can't even work in peace. This happened at 1pm outside the Monumental Stadium.
"The @PoliceEcuador promised to find these criminals."
As you can see from the video, the robbery happened in broad daylight, right in front of everyone, and in front of a live camera, outside Barcelona's Isidro Romero Carbo Monumental Stadium in the port city of Guayaquil .
The footage captured shows the man shouting, "Telephone, give me your telephone," before the cameraman bravely steps in to distract his attention, telling the man: "Here, have this. This is mine."
The pair of DirecTVSports employees then wait for a couple of seconds before heading after the criminal in order to film his swift getaway on a motorbike that has been waiting nearby for him.
After the incident went viral - the video has so far been shared more than 5,000 times - Ordinola followed up his original message with another thanking those who have stood behind him and offered their sympathy.
He wrote: "Thank you all for your messages of solidarity, I appreciate it very much.
"Let's unite to eradicate crime in Ecuador."
This incident bears incredible similarities to another that took place in Argentina last year, when another journalist had his phone snatched from his hand as he attempted to prepare for a live broadcast.
Diego Demarco was getting ready to go live from a location in Sarandi, near to the capital Buenos Aires, when a thief grabbed his phone and ran away down an alleyway as Demarco chased after him.
Demarco even pleaded with a nearby witness to try to get his phone back, asking: "Please see if you can find the man who did it and tell him we're from the television.
"Tell him to give it back to me because I work with that phone."
It was later reported that the man returned the phone after discovering that the police had notified him and were heading to arrest him.
Featured Image Credit: TwitterTopics: World News, TV and Film, south america