Whiteflash-Diamond Playground

This guy takes the cake.  Not only did he try to defraud his insurance company - he tried to defraud the guy he hired to rob him.  He’ll have up to 10 years to rethink his life. 

From Rapaport News - Diamonds are forever, but trying to pretend they were stolen may cost a Bergen County man a stretch in the slammer. Vishal Dhadda of Edgewater, 37, allegedly devised a scheme to defraud his insurance company of more than $250,000 by hiring someone to steal his satchel, said to contain diamonds, sapphires and emeralds. In exchange, the hired thief was promised cash and some jewelry in the satchel. But Dhadda’s plot was doomed from the start, because the paid “robber” was actually a federal agent. Dhadda now stands accused of insurance fraud, conspiracy to commit robbery and filing false reports. He faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted on the most serious charges. Union County Prosecutor Theodore J. Romankow announced the arrest yesterday, saying Dhadda, who owns Gem City Jewelry near Manhattan’s Diamond District, was arrested Friday in his condominium on Harbor View Terrace in Edgewater, Bergen County. He was being held at the Union County Jail on $125,000 bail. No one answered the phone at a number listed with Dhadda’s address.

Romankow said the FBI contacted his office early last month, after it had received information Dhadda was looking for someone to “rob” him. Dhadda met with an undercover FBI agent and “told him he wanted to have a bag of gems stolen from him in a public place - preferably with a paid witness,” Romankow said. To truly sell the alleged theft, “he asked that the robber hit him to make it look more real,” Romankow said. The FBI agent agreed, but refused to rough him up. The agent told Dhadda he would stage the robbery and arrange a witness, all for $5,000. The sting went down August 16 at about 3 p.m., in the parking lot of a strip mall on Route 22 in Union Township, according to assistant prosecutor James Tansey, who heads the Insurance Fraud Unit.

Authorities would not identify the store, but owners there said it is the Jewelry Exchange in the Pointe Plaza mall, on Route 22 east. Dhadda pulled into the parking area and waited outside his car, Tansey said. A few minutes later, the undercover agent pulled into the lot. As agreed, he confronted Dhadda and stole the black satchel, then got into his car and drove off. Another undercover agent posing as the witness stood nearby, the assistant prosecutor said. A man who runs a booth in Jewelry Exchange - a store with independently-owned businesses - remembered Dhadda walking in that day with the satchel. “He handed out his business card, I threw it away,” said the man, who requested anonymity, fearing bad publicity. Dhadda never opened the satchel and soon walked out and around the corner, out of view, the man said. A few minutes later he returned and announced he had been robbed. A woman, presumably the witness, was with him. Police arrived shortly thereafter. Dhadda was taken to police headquarters, where he provided a full account of the alleged robbery. Detectives Dan Fay and Ana Zsak of the prosecutor’s office and Detective William Fuentes of the Union Township Police also took part in the operation. The next day, Dhadda filed a claim with his insurance company for $258,545, handing over a detailed list of every diamond, emerald and sapphire stolen from the bag, the prosecutor’s office said. Dhadda, authorities said, didn’t just intend to deceive the insurance company. The FBI agent who posed as a robber found nothing inside the satchel but an empty water bottle.