The unfortunate situation in Mexico City is that armed robberies are more common than not. In fact, the situation has gotten so out of hand that locals have actually started to purchase fake smartphones in order to hand over to hungry criminals.

Based on recent statistics, there has been an average of seventy violent muggings in Mexico City in the past four months, with a large portion of these attacks targeting innocent pedestrians walking around the streets, or on public transport passengers.

These fake smartphones look just like the real brands, including Samsung and iPhone models, and are known as smartphone dummies.

They as just as heavy as the real thing, and cost anywhere between 300 to 500 pesos, which is 15 to 25 dollars, but clearly are worth the investment if it means not loosing your real phone, or risking your life of course.

While in most cases such a trick should work, it also comes with certain risks to hand over a fake smartphone while being held a gunpoint. If a thief realizes that they are feeling fooled, they surely won’t deal with it in the safest way possible, that’s for sure.

Many Mexicans have simply chosen to just buy a cheaper smartphone rather than a fake one.