2 suburban men charged with falsely reporting multi-million dollar jewelry armed robbery

Two men are charged with filing a false police report, claiming they were robbed of more than $1 million worth of jewelry.

Elmhurst police said Pezhman Gilani Yahyavi, 46, of Glendale Heights and Mahmood Bashang, 30, of Naperville are each charged with one felony count of disorderly conduct for falsely reporting a crime.

Police said just before 6:30 p.m. Sunday, Yahyavi told Bashang to call 911 after he intentionally drove his car off the road as part of an attempt to stage an armed robbery.

DuPage County prosecutors said Bashang told the 911 dispatcher the pair were jewelry vendors who were coming home from a jewelry show in Rosemont when they were robbed by three armed men, who took merchandise worth anywhere from $1.5 to $2 million, mostly made of 14 karat gold.

Police said during their investigation they discovered the men had taken out an insurance policy the week of the jewelry show.

"My investigators and detectives worked tirelessly for almost two days straight to really, you know, try to track down every possible lead," said Elmhurst Police Det. Cmdr. Matt McCollum. "And as I said, you know, they're looking for evidence to support the claim that there was a robbery. And as time went on, they just found no evidence to support that."

McCollum said police looked for surveillance video of the pair leaving the jewelry show, assuming they would find a car trailing them, but the footage showed no one following. Then they went back to the 911 call and discovered significant inconsistencies with the statements the men would later make to police at the scene.

Further investigation brought them to Yahyavi's home, where they found the allegedly stolen jewelry.

"He was willing to take us to the house, and he actually assisted us in opening the safe, and showed us the box that the alleged stolen jewelry was contained within. So he was cooperative in that regard," McCollum said.

McCollum said his investigators told him the Bashang eventually admitted the crime was made up.

"I wasn't personally there for it, but according to my investigators, you know, the younger suspect, it was a sense of relief. I think it had been bothering him in the days leading up to us finally learning the truth. It had been weighing heavily on him that he had made a false report," he said.

Yahyavi and Bashang were both released on monitoring until their next court date, which is scheduled for March 23.