From Betwa Sharma
New York, May 28 (PTI) Two Indian-American jewellers were sentenced to a maximum of five years in prison for staging a phony robbery in hopes of snaring insurance money to save their failing business.
The dealers, Atul Shah, 49, and Mahaveer Kankariya, 44, inspired by the 2001 Guy Ritchie film 'Snatch', hired men to dress up as Hasidic Jews and staged the robbery at their store.
The fake robbery was carried out to get their hands on USD 7 million of insurance money from Lloyd's of London. They were found guilty of seven counts of grand larceny, insurance fraud and other crimes.
After the jewellers made a USD 7 million insurance claim, insurers and authorities became suspicious as it emerged that the jeweller's businesses were in hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt.