Remember the opening scene of Snatch? The robbery with men dressed up as Hasidic Jews? Someone guys mimicked that in real life—and got caught.
Apparently New York jewellers Atul Shah and Mahaveer Kankariya were struggling with such huge debts that they only saw one solution: To hire a bunch of thugs, stage a robbery, and collect about $US7 million from their insurance company.
They would’ve gotten away with the whole thing if it weren’t for some tough security cameras.
The footage from those security cameras gave authorities a play-by-play of the entire heist as well as a look into the moments during which Shah and Kankariya removed all precious items from their safe and left only empty boxes to be “stolen” a few hours later:
The robbers [had]poured draining fluid over the cameras in the hope of destroying them, but the motherboard survived intact, managing to capture the incriminating evidence of both the heist and the switch.
The actual heist was described as “a joke” by a judge.
It apparently consisted of Shah and Kankariya calmly buzzing the hired thugs—who were dressed as Hasidic Jews—into their business offices and briefly leaving them alone in the room with the unlocked safe for unknown reasons. (The jewellers later claimed that they did this because they thought the thugs were simply couriers.)
Once no longer alone in the safe room, the thugs pulled out their guns and proceeded to “threaten” Shah, Kankariya, and their employee—who was unaware of the staged nature of the heist—into handing them the empty jewelry boxes from the already unlocked safe.
The thugs then rushed out—to never be seen again—while the jewellers planned out the rest of their insurance scam without knowing that the security footage showing how the heist played out was intact.
Eventually authorities and insurance investigators discovered the footage. The two men were then arrested and found guilty of seven counts of grand larceny, insurance fraud and other crimes. They will face up to 15 years in jail. [Daily Mail]