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It was one of London's stranger social experiments - dump 15,000 2p coins on a towpath and then film what happens.

AirBnB host Jamahl McMurran and his guest Lana Mesic, a photographer, dreamt up the stunt to use up a mound of coins left over after being used in an art installation.

They bagged them up and hauled them down to the towpath on the Regent's Canal before setting up a camera in Mr McMurran's flat overlooking the area.

The pair got four hours of footage before they scheme came to a halt when two thieves turned up and swiped the £300 pile.

Before the theft, Mr McMurran and Ms Mesic caught on film a cyclist standing in the mound before picking a handful of coins up and tossing them over his head, and children playing in the pile.

Other people attempted to take as many coins as possible, including a teenage boy, but most were thwarted by their weight.

Mr McMurran, who works for investment firm Seedcamp, told the Standard he was “gutted” when the coins were taken so soon, but still thought the experiment had been “incredible”.

Ms Mesic, a Croatian artist now based in the Netherlands, had the coins leftover from an art installation and was struggling to find a way to transport them back to the Netherlands.

“I suggested putting them by the river as a joke one night over a drink and she genuinely started contemplating it,” explained Mr McMurran.

"The next day I got home and she was actually preparing to do it. We bagged up the coins and took them out and then set up the camera.

“It was completely random but very exciting. I was annoyed I had to go to work and miss it but we had the camera up recording everything from my flat.

"It was completely spontaneous and we had no idea what would happen. Some of the footage is absolute hilarious, that one guy who stood in the coins is magical.

“I was gutted that those two guys came along and started taking them.

"I wanted a homeless person to find them or for the coins to stay there for longer.

"I decided to put a few of the pictures on Twitter as it's quite a fun story."

The coins were placed on the canal's towpath near Kingsland Street at 9am and were all gone by 12.40pm.