One held from Gujarat in Rs90-lakh diamond fraud

The city crime branch sleuths on Thursday arrested a 52-year-old man for duping a jeweller of diamonds worth Rs90 lakh last month. According to police, the accused and his accomplices had replaced original diamonds with fakes during a deal, which they cancelled later.

The arrested person has been identified as Dhirubhai Patel, a resident of Surat in Gujarat. According Sadanand Date, joint commissioner of police (crime), on September 21, three unknown persons had entered the shop of a well-known jeweller situated at MG Road in Ghatkopar (E).

"They selected diamonds and requested the salesman to keep it in a packet and said they would visit on September 23 to finalise the deal. The trio arrived at the shop on the said date. During negotiations, they replaced the packet containing the original diamonds with fakes. They later showed disagreement over the price and left cancelling the deal," said KMM Prasanna, additional commissioner.

After the trio left, owner of the shop suspected something amiss. On checking, the diamonds in the packet were found to be fake. A case of cheating was then registered with Pantnagar police, said deputy commissioner MM Dahikar.

The Ghatkopar unit of crime branch immediately swung into action and went through the CCTV footage of the shop. The police also searched for the accused persons in Surat, Vadodra, Ahmedabad, Amreli, Bhavnagar and Rajkot in Gujarat, said assistant inspector Anil Dhole.

"In Ahmedabad, we received information about one of the accused and apprehended him on Thursday. Of the stolen diamonds, we have recovered diamonds worth Rs20 lakh from Patel," said senior inspector Vyankar Patil.