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 Valu 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 peo­ple who were near­by and saw the com­mo­tion chased be­hind the teen ban­dit and caught him.

He was then hand­ed over to the po­lice. —Shane Su­perville