4 held in UAE after Rs 6.6cr diamond heist from Mumbai
Three Mexicans, including a woman, and a Venezuelan were arrested by the UAE police at Dubai airport after the four were found in possession of diamonds worth Rs 6.6 crores that had been stolen from a Mumbai exhibition. The four had swallowed the diamonds instead of stashing them in their baggage, and had to be given laxatives to get the stones out of their system.
Four foreign nationals had visited the counter of Hong Kong-based diamond company Dalomi Group at around 3.30 pm on Monday, on the last day of an exhibition at the NSE Grounds. Israeli salesman Guy Vaz was handling the counter.
“Mr Vaz showed them 887 carat diamonds worth $1.4 million in the international market (around Rs 6.6 crores in the domestic market). Soon after they had left, Mr Vaz found the diamonds missing. He first assumed he had misplaced the diamonds, but realised by the evening they must have been stolen. A complaint of theft was registered by the Goregaon police station and our unit started making parallel inquiries,” said joint commissioner of police (crime) Himanshu Roy.
Mr Roy said crime branch officers went through the CCTV footage, but it turned out to be very hazy. “We then decided to check footage from all the cameras installed near the Dalomi Group counter. In one of the clips, we saw a woman, one of a group of four foreign nationals, putting the diamonds in her bag,” Mr Roy said.
The police then traced the names of the four from xerox copies of their passports that they had to submit to gain entry into the exhibition. Police sources said the four had identified themselves as diamond traders and also said they were partners of a Jaipur-based diamond company. Crime branch officers refused to divulge any more details.
The Mexicans have been identified as Campos Molan Elias, Gonzalez Mal Donado (the two men) and Guerrero Lugo Elvia Grissel (the woman). The Venezuelan was identified as Gutterez Orlando.
“We immediately alerted immigration officials at Mumbai international airport; they told us that the four had taken an Emirates Airlines flight to Dubai at 10.30 pm and were scheduled to board another flight from there to Hamburg, Germany. We called up the UAE police and requested them to check the baggage of the four. They have told us, on an informal basis, that the diamonds had been recovered from the four,” Mr Roy said, adding: “We have sent arrest warrants against the four to the CBI’s Interpol wing, and are waiting for a response from the UAE police.”
When asked if the four were part of an international organised crime mafia, Mr Roy said: “It seems to have been a planned operation. They must have studied the place thoroughly and had deliberately chosen to commit the theft on the last day of the exhibition while the counters were busy winding up. We are still checking their backgrounds, but so far haven’t unearthed anything about their occupations.”
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