GOOF-UP: Thief mistakes antique jewellery for fake, gives them away

A house help who had been regularly stealing jewellery from her employer was nabbed two days ago. The Shivaji Park police arrested a 22-year-old woman who had been working with a renowned chartered accountant (CA) in Dadar.

Oceana building in Prabhadevi, where the theft took place. Pic/Satyajit Desai

Lakshmi Firki was then taken to her hometown, Sundargarh, in Odisha to recover the jewellery. "Most of the loot was antique diamond jewellery, which Firki thought was fake. She had given it to children in her area. The rest, she had sold to a local jeweller," said Deep Bane, police sub-inspector at Shivaji Park police station.

Lakshmi Firki had given most of the antique jewellery to children in her home town, thinking it was fake

Firki had been working at Geeta Kulkarni's house at Oceana building in Prabhadevi for the last seven months. Former chief minister Manohar Joshi, too, stays in the same building. Kulkarni's father-in-law, Venkatesh Kulkarni, is a reputed CA.

According to the police, Geeta didn't notice that the jewellery had gone missing. But when her mother-in-law, Vijayalakshmi, returned from their native place, she realised that some of the antique jewellery worth R12 lakh was missing.

"The family approached us with a theft case and told us they suspected that their antique jewellery was stolen by the house help," said Dhananjay Kulkarni, deputy commissioner of police, zone V. An FIR was registered by the Shivaji Park police on February 28.

However, Firki had been sacked by the family in January itself (for work-related issues). Cops couldn't reach her, as she had changed her phone number. "We found that one of her relatives worked in Prabhadevi.

Through her, we got her new number and traced her to Peddar Road, where she was working after losing her job at the Kulkarnis," said Bane. Police managed to recover all of the ornaments. Firki will be produced in court today.