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If it wasn’t bad enough that next year’s World Cup is being held in South Africa – which is thousands of miles away, will cost an absolute fortune to get to and is home to some of the most dangerous crime gangs on Earth – experts are now warning of the risk of marauding baboons pinching visitors’ valuables.

Cape Town has more than 400 of the red-bottomed beasts pillaging around the city’s outskirts, and only last Tuesday 29 of them attacked four cars outside Simon’s Town, ransacking bags and rummaging through the contents for food. Others started jumping around on the car roofs in an aggressive manner – not a pretty site if you’ve just returned from a picnic.

Much like football hooligans homing in on cans of Stella, baboons can spot food from some distance – and there’ll be a lot more snacks when the World Cup kicks off. "Tourism is going to go through the roof, and this equals exposure to naive people and rich pickings. People who stop the car – they're going to get raided," said Justin O’Riain who heads the baboon research unit at Cape Town University.