A Naperville man and his accomplice have been charged with allegedly staging a fake jewelry heist of more than a million dollars’ worth of jewelry, officials said.
Mahmood Bashang, 30, of the 800 block of Greenwood Circle, Naperville, and Pezhman Gilani Yahyavi, 46, of the 100 block of Vantroba Drive, Glendale Heights, told Elmhurst police they were were run off the road and robbed by three armed people, a news release from the DuPage County state’s attorney’s office and the Elmhurst Police Department said.
According to the police account, the pair called 911 about 6:30 p.m. Sunday and told the dispatcher they were on their way home from a jewelry show in Rosemont when robbers forced them off the road and took between $1.5 million and $2 million in items, most of which was 14k gold.
Police now believe Gilani Yahyavi intentionally drove his car off the road in order to make it look like a robbery, the release said.
Both men were charged with disorderly conduct-false report of a crime, a class 4 felony. Their next court appearance is scheduled for March 23.
No information was provided as to how investigators determined it was not a real heist.
Elmhurst Police Chief Michael McLean said in the release that the initial report prompted “a full-scale response. Officers, detectives and emergency personnel from Elmhurst, Bensenville and Rosemont committed significant time and resources to what was ultimately determined to be a scheme to enrich themselves.”
