Store security video catches NYC slip-and-fall scammer red-handed: ‘I want to put this guy in jail’

The jig is up.

An apparent slip-and-fall scammer tried to cash in by suing a Bronx supermarket after he “fell” on a puddle of water in one of the aisles — until the store’s security camera exposed the ruse.

Now, even his lawyer has dropped him.

“My insurance will go all the way to the top because he’s suing me — but I caught him,” Miguel Luna, owner of Fine Fare supermarket in East Tremont, told The Post. “I want to put this guy in jail.

“This would cause me to raise my prices. But I don’t want to do that. I don’t want my people to pay more,” Luna said. “This will help everybody, because they are going to try this at other stores, not only supermarkets because it’s easy money.”

The video footage of the Jan. 22 incident obtained by The Post shows an unidentified person scoping out the scene and spilling water on the floor inside one of the aisles then leaving.

Several minutes later an elderly couple is shopping at the same spot when Felix Del Aguila walks up and starts to grab bottled water from the shelf — keeping an eye on the couple.

He places two 12-packs of bottled water and a larger jug on top, then, taking one last look at the elderly pair, appears to fall on the ground — with shoppers and store employees coming to his aid.

Del Aguila gets up and grabs at his back then is seen hobbling away.

“He did not look like he was hurt to me,” store manager Jeovany Perez said. “It seemed he just wanted to leave. He didn’t call for an ambulance, the police.

“I got suspicious and I went to look at the cameras to see who threw the water there, because there was no water there before,” Perez said. “When I checked, I saw what happened. Maybe that’s why he wanted to leave fast, because it was a scam.”

But on Feb. 2, the store got a notice from a Big Apple lawyer saying that Del Aguila would “pursue a claim for personal injuries arising out of and as a result of an accident.”

However, the lawyer, who asked not to be named, quickly dropped Del Aguila after smelling a rat.

Del Aguila could not be reached for comment Wednesday despite repeated attempts.

Court records show that he has at least one prior personal injury lawsuit that settled out of court.

Del Aguila claimed in the complaint that he was injured when he fell in a Key Food supermarket on Randall Avenue in the Bronx on March 24, 2017.

The lawsuit, filed in September 2018, claimed he “sustained serious injuries” that caused him “pain, shock, mental anguish,” and that the injuries “will be permanent.”

The suit cost that store plenty.

“Four years ago my premium was $35,000,” Pedro Goico, the owner of the store, which does business as Golden Mango, griped to The Post Wednesday. “Today it’s $160,000.

“They have up to three years to file so they wait one or two years before we get the summons to go to court,”Goico said. “By then we don’t have the videos, nothing to prove our case. The insurance companies are saying we’d rather settle out of court than go for a jury trial.

“They are crooks,” he said.