A teenager has been arrested for impersonating a sheriff after he fixed police car lights on the top of his car.

Brenden Wysynski, 18, from New Mexico was caught by authorities while he was staging a traffic stop just after 12:30 am on Monday morning.

The suspicions of Albuquerque Police officers were raised when they noticed a grey Ford Sedan fixed with emergency flashing lights but no police markings.

The driver had pulled over a silver SUV, accusing it of speed driving and appeared to be conducting a traffic stop.

However a man outside the vehicle motioned at the officer as he drove past.

The officer pulled over to confront the teen, who was not wearing police uniform but had a star-shaped badge on his belt.

He identified himself to the officer as Brenden Wysynski and claimed he had been working for the Bernalillo County Sheriff's Office for the past three years.

When asked to show his police ID, the teen pointed to his badge, saying: 'This is all I got... I'm under-equipped.'

He allegedly told the officer he had pulled over the SUV because it had been travelling over the speed limit at 120mph, to which the officer expressed concern that he had not been wearing the proper attire.

Wysynski gave his birth date as '1994' but when the officer checked the registration of the vehicle, the birth year for the registration came back as 2001.

He was told to wait in the back of the officer's vehicle and after a while he confessed he was not an officer.

'I'm just gonna be straight-up with you. I'm not a cop,' he can be heard saying, before breaking down.

He was brought to the police station and later admitted that he had purchased the police badge online, after originally claiming it had belonged to his father.

He allegedly later told officers that he had been on his way to his real job when he decided to pull the SUV over because it was speeding. When he was approached by an officer he said he 'got scared' and made up the lie, according to local media.

He has been charged with impersonating a police officer.