30 days on, man who stole diamonds worth ₹21.53 crore arrested

Diamond merchant arrested in Mumbai after stealing diamonds worth ₹21.53 crore, wife also arrested for abetting. Accused on the run caught by BKC police.

MUMBAI: A city-based diamond merchant, who was on the run from the law for almost a month was arrested on Wednesday by the Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC) police. He is accused of stealing diamonds worth ₹21.53 crore. His wife was also arrested for abetting as she accepted some of the stolen diamonds as gifts.

The accused, Shalin Shah, 42, allegedly stole diamonds weighing 3,062 carats. (Representative Image)

Police officials said that the accused, Shalin Shah, 42, had allegedly stolen diamonds weighing 3,062 carats from another trader Haresh Kasodariya in March 2023. He has allegedly been to Lucknow, Nepal, and Jaipur while on the run. He was back in the city briefly when the police caught him, and his wife Jalpa, 39.

Kasodariya filed the complaint last month suspecting foul play when Shah’s office at BKC’s Bharat Diamond Bourse remained closed for over three days last month during his visit in February. “Even his phone had remained switched off at the time. I was confident of getting paid until then as I had a working relationship with Shah for at least seven years now,” he told the police. In March 2023, the complainant had given a princess-cut diamond worth ₹12.14 crores to sell to a client on a credit time of 105 days.

In Sep 2023, he again demanded a diamond worth ₹8.93 crore and said the entire payment for the two trades would be made in the next 120 days. However, he kept giving excuses like not having received the payment from the buyers every time the complainant called to inquire about the payment, Kasordiya said in his statement to the police. Shah was booked by the police under sections 409 (criminal breach of trust by tradesperson) and 420 (cheating by dishonesty) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

After being arrested, he told the police about some of the diamonds being gifted to his wife. “We not only recovered the said diamonds from the wife but also to know that she had known that the payment for them had not been made. Therefore, we booked her as a co-accused and arrested her as well,” said an official from BKC police. The couple is in police custody till April 8.