Comments (0)Jewelers Who Staged ‘Chasidic’ Robbery Arrested
March 6, 2010JTA Wire Service
Two jewelers were arrested for staging the robbery of $4 million in jewelry from their own store using thieves dressed as Chasidim.
The two diamond wholesalers from the New York Diamond District—Atul Shah, 48, and Mahaveer Kankariya, 43—staged the robbery on the afternoon of New Year’s Eve 2008. They were charged Tuesday with grand larceny, insurance fraud and falsifying business records, according to reports.
The Chasidic-disguised thieves, who wore false beards, black hats and black coats, have not yet been apprehended.
The wholesalers told police that $4 million in diamonds, emeralds, sapphires and jewelry had been stolen and tried to claim the sum from their insurer, Lloyd’s of London, according to the New York Daily News. The men were $1 million in debt and six months behind on their rent in the days before the alleged heist, police said.
But police became suspicious because the alleged robbery looked a lot like the opening scene of the 2000 film “Snatch,” directed by Guy Ritchie, in which Benicio Del Toro and a gang of diamond thieves pose as Chasids.
Engel Hits Obama on Syria Rapprochement
A Jewish Democratic U.S. congressman slammed President Obama for reappointing an ambassador to Syria.
New York Rep. Eliot Engel called Obama’s appointment last week of Robert Ford a “mistake.”
“Unless Syria has agreed to something I am not privy to behind the scenes—making themselves helpful, ready to take some steps away from Iran, ready to cooperate in the region for peace and stability—then there is some rationale for the move,” Engel told The Jerusalem Post this week. “But short of that, I don’t see any rationale in it at this time.”
Engel, a senior member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, was one of the first Democratic congressmen to break with Obama’s Middle East policies dealing with Israel and Iran, though he has said he is heartened by new policies geared to isolate Iran and shore up Israel’s military capabilities.
Engel was a lead sponsor of the Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act, signed into law by former President George W. Bush in December 2003. The act gave the president tools to form sanctions against Syria.
The last ambassador to Syria was recalled in 2005 after Rafik Hariri, the former Lebanese prime minister who led the reform movement, was assassinated, allegedly on Syrian orders.
Coinciding with the appointment and visits by U.S. officials to Damascus, a travel warning for U.S. citizens visiting Syria was lifted. The State Department’s notification of the change says that “Being a State Sponsor of Terrorism is not a basis for a travel warning.”
Mezuzah Hung in Delaware Governor’s Mansion
Delaware’s first Jewish governor hung a mezuzah at the governor’s mansion in Dover.
Among those joining Jack Markel in Tuesday’s ceremony in the capital were Rabbi Peter Grumbacher of the governor’s synagogue, Congregation Beth Emeth in Wilmington; Rabbi Steven Saks of the Rabbinical Association of Delaware; and Glenn Engelmann, president of the Jewish Federation of Delaware, according to the Sussex Countian.
Markel received the mezuzah as an inauguration gift, according to the report.