In oct. 2007 a flawless 6.04 carat blue diamond was auctioned in London for nearly $7,000,000. The emerald-cut diamond broke the previous price per carat records in the diamond industry. The bidding lasted 8 minutes. Blink and gone.
If this stone went for seven million, then you have to ask how much the infamous 70-carat blue diamond stolen from a Saudi Royal Family by a Thai migrant worker in 1990 would be worth on the open market.
Back then it was valued at $2 million.
Inflation would have added a zero at least.More...
Unfortunately the missing stone remains a point of contention between the two Asian kingdoms. Thais think the stone is cursed thanks to the 17 Corpses littering the path of investigation, mostly by Thai police covering up their profit from the theft of 90kg of jewelry by a Thai palace worker, Kriangkrai Techamong, who shipped them to Thailand via DHL.
In 1991 3 Saudi diplomats were murdered in Bangkok. Aweek later a Saudi businessman vanished with all knowledge of the diamond's whereabouts. He buried them in his rice paddies and started selling them at $30 a pop. Diamonds and rice farmers don't mix and the police arrested the contrite farmer, after which the jewelry was replaced with fakes unknown to the grateful Saudi government, until a well-known necklace appeared on a high society woman in Bangkok.
Saudi diplomats demanded answers. Three of them got bullets instead as did a Saudi businessman with knowledge of the crime. Next to go were the son and wife of the Thai jeweler fencing the jewelry. Their death were originally attributed to a road accident. Two senior policemen were later charged with kidnapping the Thai jeweler supposedly ransoming the diamond and received 7 years prison time for succumbing to the greed emanating from this cursed stone. The top cop has appealed his sentence, saying that not everyone in prison is guilty.
The thief Kriangkrai Techamong was freed after serving 2 years and 7 months in prison.
The story resurfaced with the new government who wants to settle this dispute with the Saudi government.
BANGKOK POST
Thailand's new Foreign Minister Noppodon Pattama has pinpointed a restoration of close ties with Saudi Arabia as one of his priorities for his "proactive" diplomacy, said the state-run Thai News Agency.
Thai-Saudi relations have been poor for the past two decades on account of Thailand's failure to adequately investigate and explain the murder of four Saudi diplomats in Bangkok and disappearance of a Saudi businessman in 1989, whose fates were allegedly linked to the so-called Blue Diamond. Shortly after the case Saudi Arabia banned Thai labourers and prohibited its nationals from visiting Thailand as tourists, depriving the kingdom of millions of dollars in lost income.
Noppodon, who became foreign minister of February 6, has vowed to solve the decades'-old case in an effort to normalize relations with Saudi Arabia, as part of his mission to improve economic relations with various countries.
END OF ABRIDGED ARTICLE
I wish them luck, because as a Saudi diplomat said, "Only Allah and a few Thais know the truth."
Everyone else is dead.
For a related article click on this URL
http://www.mangozeen.com/bangkok-sapphire-scams.htm
No comments:
Post a Comment