A 25-year-old woman from Costa Rica has become an internet sensation after security footage captured her using what appeared to be jiu-jitsu techniques to stop a purse snatcher at a restaurant in Pérez Zeledón. Sol Vargas was picking up breakfast after her work shift at La Estación restaurant, which operates 24 hours near the Escalante Pradilla hospital, when the incident unfolded in the early hours of September 2nd.
As the cashier prepared to hand over her food, Vargas noticed a man grabbing her purse from the counter.
“Nobody was in the restaurant. This guy grabs my purse and I see him and I say, he can’t take it,”
Vargas told regional media TV Sur.
“I grabbed him, threw him to the ground and honestly, yes, I hit him, I made him bleed and everything.”
The dramatic confrontation, captured entirely on security cameras, shows Vargas immediately springing into action. She grabbed the would-be thief by the arm, took him down to the ground and applied what observers described as a submission hold reminiscent of mixed martial arts techniques. The suspect found himself completely immobilized, unable to escape as Vargas maintained control from on top.
What makes the incident even more remarkable is that Vargas has never taken a martial arts class.
“It was a quick reaction on my part,”
she explained.
“I don’t know anything about that. That’s what came out of me naturally.”
A restaurant employee eventually emerged from the kitchen and called police, but by then Vargas had the situation well in hand. The suspected thief sustained facial injuries during the altercation.
“My mom says that was a jiu-jitsu lock and Brazilian techniques and I don’t know what, but as I tell her, I don’t know anything about that,”
Vargas said. The young woman added that she works hard for her money and refuses to let anyone simply walk away with her belongings.
Restaurant owner Francisco Bermúdez expressed amazement at how Vargas handled the attempted robbery.
“Without words, it surprised me and everyone who has seen the video,”
he commented, noting that nothing like this had ever happened at his establishment before.
The incident wasn’t Vargas‘s first time defending herself. She revealed that just two months earlier, she confronted a man who harassed her after work, though she chose not to involve police in that case.
Vargas didn’t initially publicize the security footage herself, only discovering hours later that the video had gone viral when she woke up to thousands of messages and comments on her social media accounts.
While some have cautioned that confronting criminals can be dangerous since they might be armed, Vargas believes that if the suspect had carried a weapon, he would have revealed it immediately rather than attempting a simple grab-and-run theft.
The experience has inspired Vargas to consider formal martial arts training.
“Now that I know I had the initiative to do these things, I would like to practice some martial art or self-defense, because you never know when something like this could happen,”
she said.
