NOT THE SHARPEST KNIVES IN THE DRAWER: Life Imitates “Snatch”
The New York Post calls a staged Diamond District jewel heist “a real fugazi” [explanatory link added by The Stiletto]:
Atul Shah, 48, and Mahaveer Kankariya, 43, owners of Dialite Imports on West 46th Street, were more than a million dollars in debt and concocted the elaborate hoax to collect on a massive insurance policy with Lloyd's of London, authorities said. …
The robbery mimicked the opening scene of the 2000 Guy Ritchie film "Snatch," in which Benicio Del Toro and a gang of diamond thieves pose as Hasids.
In the real-life version, when the jewelry-store owners reported the bogus Dec. 31, 2008, heist, they claimed that two men - sporting black coats, hats and beards - pulled guns after being buzzed into the store and appeared to make off with a startling haul of precious stones from the safe.
The "Hasids" - who had actually been hired by the store owners - were caught on building surveillance entering in their costumes, then spray-painting the camera lenses to make them useless.
Surveillance cameras inside the store, however, showed the owners clearing all the bling out of the safe two hours before the alleged robbery. The owners thought they had disabled those cameras.
Both men were arrested on charges of grand larceny, insurance fraud and falsifying business records.
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