Jail in a 'snatch'

Two bungling Diamond District jewelers are heading to prison for a foiled plot that was right out of the Guy Ritchie movie "Snatch" -- hiring fake robbers to dress as Hasids and stage a bogus, $7 million gunpoint robbery.

Atul Shah, 49, of Closter, NJ, and Mahaveer Kankariya, 45, of Norwood, NJ, were sentenced yesterday to 1 2/3 to five years in prison for the gem-heist caper. With good behavior, they should be free within the year.

It could have gone far worse for the jewelers, given that Kankariya had been caught two months ago making inquiries about bribing the judge.

"It just rocks my world," Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Thomas Farber said of the bribe inquiries, which had been reported and halted before ever reaching the judge.

Both men were emotional at yesterday's brief sentencing hearing.

"Your honor, for the rest of my life I will carry the sin of this case, " Shah sobbed.

"My life, my family's life, everything is in your hands. My freedom is in your hands."

The fake Hasids and the jewelry have never been located in the case, in which the cash-strapped jewelers pretended to have been robbed at gunpoint, then filed a $7 million theft claim with the insurance giant Lloyd's of London.

The hapless jewelers tried to destroy any security-camera record of the "heist" by pouring drain cleaner into the recording equipment's mainframe computer in the office's closet. They had hoped investigators would be left with building security tape showing the bogus Hasids only entering and leaving the building.

But the drain cleaner didn't seep into the recording equipment's motherboard, allowing investigators to recover footage of Shah and Kankariya methodically emptying their large safe and carrying the contents into another office two hours before the heist.

"Where is that jewelry?" prosecutor Kavita Bovell asked, calling for a sentence of three to nine years.

"They want your sympathy, but they're not willing to take responsibility."

Both the prosecutor and a lawyer from Lloyd's, who also spoke at the sentencing, noted that the two men cost the city and the insurer a huge amount of time and money to investigate an armed robbery that never happened.

"This was a crime of economic desperation that was undertaken out of desperation and stupidity," Shah's lawyer, Ben Brafman, told the judge in asking successfully for the easy sentence -- the lowest allowed by statute for felonies carrying a maximum of 15 years in prison.

Fascination Diamond Jewelry Cleaner ® liquid 6 oz. | Purchase ...

This “tale as old as time” follows the adventures of Miss, a bright young woman who finds herself imprisoned in the castle of a mysterious beast. With the assistance of the castle’s charmed staff, a delightful and caring romance develops between these cardinal unlikely friends and Belle soon learns the most important teaching of all — that true aesthetic comes from inside.

Tampa Bay Magazine

Haley's Hints

Bling, The Hip-Hop Jewelry Book

How to Buy a Diamond, Insider Secrets for Getting Your Money's Worth

Jewelers' circular-keystone, JCK.