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SINGAPORE \u2013 A thief who hid a diamond worth nearly $200,000<\/span><\/a> in his mouth to steal it from a jewellery store has been sentenced to two years, two months and two weeks\u2019 jail.<\/p>\n Serasiya Milan Ramnikbhai, 30, who appeared in court via video-link, pleaded guilty to a theft charge on Sept 1.<\/p>\n His accomplice, Mangroliya Manojkumar Kurjibhai, 41, received the same sentence<\/span><\/a> in July.<\/p>\n Serasiya\u2019s lawyers, Amarick Gill and S. Ramanunjen, said Mangroliya, who worked in the diamond industry, was the one who hatched the plan to steal the diamond.<\/p>\n The lawyers from the Amarick Gill law firm added: \u201cIt was Mangroliya who sourced out the diamond… and it was Mangroliya who booked and paid for the flights to Singapore.\u201d<\/p>\n They said Serasiya knew nothing about the gem trade, adding that Mangroliya had promised their client a \u201ccertain amount\u201d of money for his role in the theft.<\/p>\n The two Indian nationals were introduced to each other through a mutual friend.<\/p>\n State Prosecuting Officer Yip Cheng Yee said that after Serasiya and Mangroliya agreed to steal the diamond from Dianoche jewellery store in Kreta Ayer Road, they got a counterfeit stone made in India.<\/p>\n The fake gemstone matched the specifications and serial number of the real diamond.<\/p>\n They arrived in Singapore as tourists on June 19.<\/p>\n At around 3pm, they visited the store with Serasiya concealing the counterfeit diamond in his mouth.<\/p>\n They asked to see the 4.95-carat diamond valued at US$154,000 (S$199,000, according to court documents).<\/p>\n Mangroliya distracted the sales manager serving them when he said he wanted to view several other items.<\/p>\n When the manager left his seat, Serasiya, acting on Mangroliya\u2019s instructions, spat out the counterfeit diamond and swopped it with the 4.95-carat diamond. He then put the real gemstone in his mouth.<\/p>\n Cameras inside the store captured the men\u2019s actions, the court heard.<\/p>\n The offenders left the premises and checked out of their hotel. They then booked an India-bound flight for later that day.<\/p>\n The store alerted the police after the manager examined the counterfeit diamond with an optical gemstone identification machine and found that it was a fake.<\/p>\n The police were alerted at around 3.40pm, and the two offenders were arrested about five hours later at Changi Airport while they were attempting the clear immigration.<\/p>\n The authorities recovered the genuine diamond from Serasiya\u2019s haversack, and both men were charged with theft on June 20.<\/p>\n On Sept 1, the defence lawyers pleaded for the court to give Serasiya a sentence similar to the one which Mangroliya received in July.<\/p>\n They added that their client is remorseful.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n SINGAPORE \u2013 A thief who hid a diamond worth nearly $200,000 in his mouth to steal it from a jewellery store has been sentenced to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":81821,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2611],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-81820","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-buzz-headlines","wpcat-2611-id"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81820","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=81820"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81820\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/81821"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=81820"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=81820"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=81820"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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