The two men drove straight past security barriers and across a field to get to a gravel yard outside Skurup in the far south of Sweden on Wednesday. They then phoned a nearby school and asked for help to dislodge a digger that had become stuck. A teacher at the school sent a pupil over to the yard to help the pavers.

But when the pupil got to the site he quickly realised that there was no digger. Instead the two men threatened him and ordered him to start loading gravel into their UK-registered truck, local newspaper Ystads Allehanda reports.

“It was incredibly cheeky. It’s surprising how inventive thieves can be,” Ingrid Larsson from the Brösarps Grus gravel yard told the newspaper.

Once the truck was loaded, the men hopped in and drove away from the pit. But in an ironic twist of fate, the wheels of the vehicle got stuck in the waterlogged field and the men were unable to proceed.

By then the school had suspected that all was not well and notified Ingrid Larsson, who in turn called the police. By the time the police arrived, the men had disappeared.

But the pavers appear to have been lying in wait and returned to the scene after the police had the truck towed out of the field. With the police busy gathering information, the two men climbed aboard the rescued vehicle and made good their escape.

Police gave chase and stopped the truck at the village of Skivarp. One of the men was arrested, while the other managed to get away on foot.

“There’s an order out to bring him in for questioning,” police spokesman Magnus Swall told The Local.

His colleague is being held on charges of theft and fraud.