Scooby Doo cops foil phone thieves at carnival

A group of cops dressed as Scooby Doo characters have bust a gang of phone thieves at a carnival in Brazil.

The Scooby Doo gang – Fred, Daphne, Velma, Shaggy, and of course, Scoob – travel from town to town solving mysteries in their van, aptly named the Mystery Machine.

Created by Hanna-Barbera, they’ve been the subject of cartoons and comic strips – as well as a pair of movies written by James Gunn – while Netflix is currently working on a live-action series that will serve as an origin story.

But in Brazil, the characters are being somewhat unofficially used for a very different purpose, resulting in the Scooby crew stopping actual criminals.

Scooby Doo gang bust criminal gang at Brazil carnival

It’s currently carnival season in Brazil, and some innovative police officers have used the occasion to don costumes as part of their ‘Operation Tracking’ initiative.

A squad of undercover cops in São Paulo dressed as Shaggy, Velma, Daphne, and Scoob – as well as a Squid Game guard – to foil a gang of pickpockets stealing phones.

According to the New York Post, they arrested a man and two women, one of whom had eight cellphones on her person. The criminals in question were taken to a nearby police station, while the stolen phones were returned to their rightful owners.

This isn’t the first time Brazilian police have used the character rouse either, as São Paulo cops dressed as Ghostbusters stopped a woman in possession of 12 phones earlier this month.

While Rio officers recently dressed as Money Heist characters and Jason Voorhees from Friday the 13th to foil criminal gangs at their own carnival.