A robber suffered instant karma when he targeted a shop - only for the woman behind the counter to be a kickboxer who beat him senselessly.

The would-be thief tried to force his way through a security service hatch while she was serving him at the kiosk in Resistencia, Chaco province, Argentina, on May 22.

But as he tried to clamber through, the shop worker, Yanela Caceres, used all her kickboxing skills to fight him off.

Within seconds, she unleashes a bruising flurry of a dozen punches to his head as he struggles to break free.

Then, just as she is about to get an agonising armlock on him, the hoodie-wearing thug manages to pull away and flees empty-handed as the clip ends.

Local media reports said the crook had asked Yanela for a drink of water as a trick to get her to open the service hatch.

She said: 'First, he asks me about a single cigarette. We don't sell it like that anymore, so I tell him that, and he then asks me if he can have some water.'

The water was at the back of the store, so Yanela had reportedly closed the service window and went to the back to fetch it in a small bottle.

She added: 'When I handed him the bottle, he pushed down on the window and tried to get into the store.'

'He wanted to grab me, and I reacted as can be seen in the video.'

Yanela said she hit him so hard her knuckles were bleeding, but she was otherwise uninjured.