This is the moment a trio of thieves start dancing after stealing a few dozen mobile phones from a shop in the middle of the night.

Surveillance camera footage depicts the three men busting some moves inside the store in the city of Ziyang in Sichuan, China.

Their happy dance reportedly followed after they broke in and got excited when they managed to steal at least 23 mobile phones in the evening of Saturday, December 16.

The break-in was uncovered after the company's employees realised that the door had been open and all the mobile phones on the counter were missing the next morning.

Zhonghe Police rushed to the scene following a call from the employees and launched an immediate investigation to locate the crooks.

But they were stunned when they took a look at the CCTV footage and saw the three masked men dancing.

Police discovered that there were in fact four men who arrived at the store on a motorbike around 10pm.

They first climbed up on a telephone pole outside the store and turned the surveillance camera facing the shop to a different angle, before using a pair of pliers to open the U-lock securing the door.

One of the thieves reportedly remained outside to keep guard, while the other three went in and looted all the devices they could find.

Officer Zhou Feng said: 'The whole process from entering the store to leaving after successfully stealing took about 10 minutes.'

Feng revealed that all four suspects have been arrested as of Wednesday morning, December 20, after one of them, named Lu, was caught by cops, and the others, named Ding, Wang, and Li, surrendered shortly after.

When quizzed, they confessed they began dancing in front of the cameras after they got 'too excited' about their successful break-in.

The stolen smartphones were reportedly worth around CNY 32,000 (GBP 3,552).

Most of them were sold before the offenders were arrested, however, police managed to recover around CNY 9,000 worth (GBP 999) of the stolen goods.