Mumbai Diamond Thieves Opened 16 Bank Safes

(IDEX Online News) – In the ongoing investigation of the theft of diamonds from safety deposit lockers at the Bank of India, police authorities have so far recovered 27 duplicate keys and have established that the gang had opened 16 safety deposit safes. So far, $1.6 million in diamonds and cash were recovered from the gang, allegedly led by diamond dealer Ajay Mehta.

Mehta and associates Chandrasen Berde, Shamshuddin Azmi and locksmith Farid Hasmi are under arrest for having stolen polished diamonds from a number of safes from the bank’s Opera House branch in Mumbai’s diamond district.

Hasmi fabricated duplicate keys, including the bank custodian’s keys, from impressions created by other gang members posing as bank customers visiting their deposited items. The thieves allegedly broke into the safes over an extended period of time.

The case was exposed when Mehul Doshi, a diamond dealer, reported a theft of diamonds worth $355,000 from his safe. It was immediately apparent that more safes had been broken into as the police initially recovered some $889,000 in diamonds from the gang.

Five more diamond dealers have subsequently reported diamond thefts from their safety deposit safes.

The victims reportedly claimed they had notified the bank of the robbery as soon as they had become aware of it. An officer of the Unit II Crime Branch was quoted as saying, “We will ask bank officials why they didn’t lodge a police complaint.”