Crime Spree
December 09, 07
• One thief who thought “outside the box” was Greg G. Giannotta of East Brunswick, New Jersey.
The suspect tripped the store’s alarm when he left the building wearing, you guessed it, stolen clothes. Police say they saw Giannotta running from the store, but when he realized he had been spotted, he attempted to casually walk away but was caught and arrested.
• Two thieves who at least brought their own clothes with them targeted Graff Diamonds in London and made off with a haul reportedly worth several million dollars.
The two were described as well-dressed men, around 6ft tall and aged between 40 to 55 years old
The company seems to be a big draw for robbers. Graff’s Dubai branch was hit in April when robbers rammed their vehicle into the store and made away with $4 million worth of diamonds, the biggest heist in Dubai’s history.
In 2003, three robbers made off with $43 million of gems and jewelry from Graff on New Bond Street. Most of the jewelry has never been found, although police did recover 19 stones and a ring featuring a 2.32 carat blue diamond.
• You know how you feel when your luggage goes missing at the airport? Well just think how the owners of diamonds and jewelry worth more than Rs.40 million ($1.015 million) felt when their goods were stolen at Mumbai airport.
Fortunately, in this case, unlike many lost luggage incidents, the goods were recovered and returned to their rightful owner.
Three airport employees suspected of involvement in the theft were arrested. The suspects, Gerald d’Costa, 29, Ramesh Rajak, 40, and Prakash Shinde, 29, were an Air India handlers.
• Trouble always seems to come in threes. Another Indian story involved three security guards accused of stealing Rs.20 million ($492,000) in diamonds and cash from a polishing plant where they worked as guards.
According to reports, the three allegedly offered eight other guards candy to celebrate the upcoming marriage of one of their daughters. Before long, the eight fell unconscious, giving the thieves opportunity to break into a safe at Aviraj Diamonds and Gems. The theft was discovered the following morning when the owners arrived and found an open safe, and the diamonds and Rs.700,000 ($17,211) in cash missing.
• In May, diamond-studded jewelry, weighing approximately 10 kilograms and believed to be worth about Rs.10,000,000 ($250,000), was reportedly stolen from a factory within the high-security SEEPZ Special Economic Zone in Andheri, Mumbai.
The theft at Shankar Jewels, a unit in the Gem and Jewellery Complex II, was only detected when the company opened for business after the weekend.
Despite the tight security surrounding the SEZ, police investigators believe that one of the robbers gained entry into the unit by removing the wire mesh on the toilet windows and then let in his accomplices through the front door. The intruders appeared to have some knowledge about the location of the factory’s safe.
• In Germany, a suspect was arrested in connection with the theft of $28 million worth of diamonds from Antwerp’s ABM AMRO bank in March. Israeli Eliser Mishali was stopped by German authorities in Frankfurt as he attempted to leave the country, after having spent several weeks crisscrossing Germany and the Netherlands.
In the heist, 120,000 carats of diamonds were spirited out of the bank in Antwerp’s diamond district by a man posing as a customer. The passport he used as identification was later discovered to have been stolen in Israel a few years ago.
Among the stolen goods were 41 blue brilliant diamonds and two pear-shaped green diamonds. According to Antwerp World Diamond Center spokesman Philip Claes, the stolen diamonds were owned by eight Antwerp-based diamond trading companies and given as a pledge to bank loans.
• Despite all the security at trade shows, jewelry worth about $825,000 was stolen at Baselworld just ahead of the fair opening. The jewelry was reportedly snatched as it was being brought to an exhibitor’s booth. This was just one of a number of reports of missing goods at the fair. At least one shipment of loose diamonds from Hong Kong destined for the show apparently failed to arrive. Another shipment may have been delivered to the wrong destination.
The value of the missing diamonds was estimated by security people at well over a million dollars.
• In what was believed to be the biggest diamond theft in Canada’s history, C$5 million ($4.22 million) worth of rough and polished diamonds was stolen from Gem Star in North York, Ontario, in February.
According to reports in the local press, the perpetrators first cut the phone lines to prevent the building’s security system from connecting to an outside alarm. They then broke into two safes in Gem Star offices before leaving undetected.
• In October, thieves raided the Champs Elysees Harry Winston jewelry store, making off with at least €10 million ($14 million) worth of goods. Around 10 am, masked perpetrators burst into the store, overpowered the staff, forced them to open the safes and then fled with the jewelry, jewels and watches.
A specialist consulted by AFP commented that the merchandise will not yield its face value. Anyone in possession of the goods will have to remove the gems from their settings to disguise their origin and sell them for far less than their actual worth.
• Over in Zimbabwe, it was crime on a slightly larger scale. Seventeen police officers were arrested for illegal diamond trading. Ironically enough, the officers were caught allegedly trading rough diamonds in an area they were stationed in to protect from illicit diamond mining.
According to a police spokesman, three of the officers were in possession of 30 diamonds; the rest had cash in sums ranging from Z$144,000 to Z$45.6 million ($4.80 to $1,520).
The arrests were made in Chiadzwa, which had been taken into government control after diamonds were found at the site. Since it was sealed off at the order of President Robert Mugabe, there have been a number of reports of police involvement in mining, selling and smuggling goods.
All 17 were expelled from the police force over their involvement.