Mumbai: A gang of six, which had conned a high-end jewellery shop in the Taj Mahal hotel at Gateway of India, has been busted by the Mumbai police in an over six-month-long investigation.
The gang hatched their plan on June 15, 2014, when Surinder Punjabi (60) visited a diamond jewellery shop at the Taj Mahal hotel with his so-called daughters, Mini (21) and Tina Pandey (20), bought diamonds worth Rs 7 lakh, and made the payment two days later with a Demand Draft (DD). The shop owners, not suspecting the genuineness of their buyers and the DD, accepted it only to realise later that it was a fake. The quality of the fake DD was such that even the bank where it was sent to be processed failed to initially suspect its genuineness. In this fashion, Punjabi and the Pandey sisters have conned at least five other jewellery shops in suburban Mumbai — in Bandra, Khar and Bhandup. They, along with an accomplice, Janak Dholkia (58), were arrested in December 2014 from Nalasopara and, subsequently on January 12, two more persons, Ashok Mehta (63) and Rajesh Karani (37), were arrested from Charkop in Kandivali.
According to sources in the police, usually Punjabi and sometimes Mehta would act as the father of the sisters and buy the jewellery saying that it was for their birthday or wedding. “Dholkia was the one who used to plan, handle the logistics and sell the jewellery. Karani was the one who used to forge documents such as DDs and bank cheques on a computer software, scan them and print them,” said a police official.
A laptop, scanner and printer were used to make the fake DDs, cheques, Aadhar cards, PAN cards and currency notes. All these, along with stamps bearing a national bank’s official logo, and around Rs 40,000 in fake currency has been seized from them. “Punjabi and the Pandey sisters, who used to go to the shops, are experts in acting and not once were they suspected. While Mini and Tina are actual sisters, they are not related to any of the other arrested accused.
They were hired by these men to do these jobs and were paid around Rs 3000 for every heist,” said the Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP), Zone I, Ravindra Shisve. Besides Mumbai, they had also conned jewellery shops in Gujarat, MP and UP. The diamonds stolen from the jewellery shop in the Taj Mahal hotel were recovered from Gujarat, where the accused had cut them down and stored them. Shisve also added that “it was only at the time of processing of the DDs that the banks realised they were fake. The cops are investigating if any bank employees are involved in this case and if there are more accomplices.
