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Video: Dubai Police recover $20 million diamond

Dubai - The jewel was stolen by an Asian security guard.

The Dubai Police have recovered a diamond estimated to be worth $20 million (Dh73 million) after a security guard pulled off a near-impossible theft from the vault of the company he worked in. A police team recovered the rare blue diamond from an Asian country.
After stealing the 9.33-carat diamond, the suspect handed it over to his relative to smuggle it in a shoe by sea. A video of the investigation released by the police shows an officer taking the sports shoe out of its box and recovering the pouch containing the diamond that is hidden inside.
The police arrested the Sri Lankan suspect, who was holed up in a neighbouring emirate after switching off his phone. Tracing him was no mean task as the police had to scour through more than 8,620 hours of surveillance camera footages and question over 120 people.
Colonel Mohammed Aqil Ahli, deputy director of the department of criminal investigation, said the police were notified about the daring theft from the company's vault at its headquarters in Jebel Ali. The company officials were baffled by the crime, as the suspect had to go through multiple layers of security gates to get to the vault. As per the security protocol in place, the number of employees authorised to pass through to the vault reduced with the passage of each gate. The final gate could only be opened by three security guards together: The first had to have a key, the second a manual secret code and the third an electronic code that automatically changed frequently.
Despite these security precautions, the suspect managed to enter the vault and carry out the theft. After the police identified him, they came to know that he had cut off contact with all of his acquaintances. The police managed to trace him and arrested him.
During his interrogation, the suspect told the police that he carried out the theft a week before he was to go on vacation. The plan was to escape to his home country to "realise his dream of becoming a millionaire".
Though the police did not disclose how he managed to bypass all the security layers, Col Ahli said the suspect's background as a security guard helped him carry out the theft.
amira@khaleejtimes.com

How the theft was discovered
The stolen diamond was a subject of dispute between two companies, Khaleej Times can reveal. A source said the Dubai Public Prosecution had ordered that the diamond be deposited in the vault of the company till the dispute was resolved.
Days before he was to travel, a top official at the company asked the three security guards authorised to enter the vault to check on the diamond. When they opened the safe, they found that the box in which the diamond was kept was missing.
amira@khaleejtimes.com