A 17-year-old was held by passers-by af­ter at­tempt­ing to snatch a woman’s gold chains in San Juan on Wednes­day af­ter­noon.

Po­lice said the woman was stand­ing on the pave­ment near the True Val­ue su­per­mar­ket at the cor­ner of El So­cor­ro Road and Fifth Street around 6.10 pm when she felt some­one pulling two gold chains from be­hind her neck.

She turned around and strug­gled with the teen while call­ing for help.

The teen man­aged to grab the chains and run, but near­by peo­ple chased and caught him.

Barataria Po­lice were called and ar­rest­ed the boy. He was tak­en to the Mara­cas, St Joseph Ju­ve­nile Book­ing Cen­tre.

Po­lice said the boy’s moth­er was no­ti­fied, and of­fi­cials from the Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty were al­so in­formed.