A couple of diamond dealers who were a million dollars in debt probably thought they were very clever when they came up with the idea to hire a couple of fake burglars, get them to dress up as Hasidic Jews, and stage a robbery of their own office. The Post thinks they got the idea from the movie Snatch, but it isn’t a stretch to imagine they thought of it on their own (the diamond district has its fair share of Hasidim walking around, and those coats are voluminous). Regardless, the plot went pear-shaped when the dealers, Atul Shah and Mahaveer Kankariya, failed to properly destroy internal surveillance video records. So even though the hired burglars spray-painted over exterior cameras, police were able to retrieve a tape of Shah and Kankariya inside, helping themselves to $9.2 million worth of goods from their own safes. They hoped to make off with the gems and rake in the insurance benefits, solving their debt problems and making them rich all in one go. Instead, they’re going to jail, where the best they can hope for is not being forced to watch things like Guy Ritchie movies over and over on a twelve-inch screen.
“Snatch” and Grabbed [NYP]
