By Shayna Jacobs
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
MANHATTAN SUPREME COURT — Two diamond district business partners accused of staging a robbery were videotaped emptying the safe that was purportedly robbed and then stuffing it with empty boxes, prosecutors said.
The video — played in court for the first time at the jewelers' trial on Wednesday — is the smoking gun evidence against Atul Shah and Mahaveer Kankariya, according to prosecutors. The two allegedly hired toy-gun-toting actors dressed as Hasidic Jews in fake beards and hats to carry out the staged heist.
The men are suspected of setting up the allegedly fake robbery, which took place on Dec. 31, 2008, so they could make a $7 million claim to their insurance company Lloyd's of London, to get themselves out of debt.
The video shows Shah and Kankariya making about a dozen trips from the kitchen, where their safe was, to another room in their Diamond District office. They carry trays of what is presumed to be jewelry in anticipation of the staged robbery, the video shows.
Then the purported robbers enter the room where the safe is and hold Shah to the ground, tie his hands behind his back, and point what is believed to be a plastic gun at his head. The robbers then untie Shah.
He holds his hands in the air and is lead down the hallway to another room before the video cuts off.
"You don't know anything about what was taken in and out [of the safe]?" defense lawyer Benjamin Brafman asked the forensic witness who recovered the tape from a damaged DVR.
"That's not correct because I know an empty box when I see it," the expert witness, Luke Cats, testified Wednesday.
Cats said only Shah and Kankariya were seen near the safe prior to the purported heist.
Prosecutors said the video was meant to be destroyed. They showed evidence that a DVR receiving the security video feed had been doused in industrial strength drain cleaner.
Shah and Kankariya did not know that a forensic analyst could recover the recordings, the DA said.
At one point, someone involved covers the lens of a security camera with black spray paint, but even that did not completely prevent recording.
Another security video shown in court Wednesday showed the costumed would-be robbers entering the lobby and leaving with a duffel bag. That video was released by police after reports of the heist.
The bench trial will be decided by Manhattan Supreme Court Judge Thomas Farber.
