::sigh:: It’s always diamond heists. Why can’t anyone ever steal some nice rubies, sapphires and emeralds?
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If diamonds fall out of favor they will just re-brand as “physical NFTs”
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I assume the bag was sealed, so when the (nonexistent) buyer came they would easily be able to see that the diamonds they were looking at were the same ones their employees had inspected previously.
I am failing to find an article I read a while ago on making physical seals with what basically amounted to glitter glue, based on the idea that it’s unfeasible to precisely reproduce a distinct random pattern of 10’000+ glitter particles in a seal … which I thought was pretty neat.
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She had to show her passport to get on the Eurostar train. I imagine that Boodles required her to show identification before they allowed her to handle the diamonds.
Lakatos claimed Anna was in fact her late younger sister, Liliana Lakatos, who had confessed to using the former’s passport to commit the crime months before she died in a car crash, aged 49, in Romania, in October 2019.
Liliana Lakatos was wanted in Switzerland for an almost identical plot, where an envelope containing €400,000 (£340,000) was switched for a duplicate filled with paper.
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Why can’t anyone ever steal some nice rubies, sapphires and emeralds?
Lab grown corundum is cheap, even cut and polished. I think the show has been over for rubies and sapphires for a while.
Alibaba has 1 ct uncut diamonds going for $50/carat, which seems about right. Cut diamonds still seem to be fetching over $1000/ct for a 1 to 2 ct stone.
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Are lab-grown diamonds really that much more expensive than lab-grown corundum? But lab-grown is apples and oranges; I’m talking about real stones.
It seems like most of the money is going into the cut either way, and the resale value (especially if you’re going through a fence) is going to knock at least a digit off whatever you manage to steal. The first thing I thought when I saw the 5.7M headline was, “Pssh, that’s retail.” You’re not going to get a grand for a 1-2 carat stone if you’re not a retailer marking it up.
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on the programme bbc news ‘the papers’ they were talking about who would play the lead character in a movie…
julie waters was suggested
That’s good information to know!
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Ironically, ‘Lakatos’ is Hungarian for ‘locksmith’. (Or so I recall from a conversation about someone in my academic field who changed his name to this.)
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The diamond industry is like any other: they sell expensive diamonds because there is a gullible market for them. I suspect your real beef is with the customers who buy diamonds. After all, diamond jewelry (as opposed to commercial diamonds) are completely non-essential, so it’s not like they’re jacking up prices of a product people really need.
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Nope, the industry. Ever seen “Blood Diamond” the movie? Tip of the iceberg.
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I’m not saying the industry is completely innocent, but without customers the industry would dry up overnight, and with it the practices you’re describing. It’s no different from blaming the fast food industry for feeding us garbage (which they do), while ignoring the fact that we’re buying their garbage.
You made an assumption about who my “beef” was with. I corrected you.
We can talk about responsibilities of “consumers” versus “producers” and I think that’s a valid conversation,* but I don’t think this is the thread for that.
Back a bit more OT, I still love heist movies. And I’m still awaiting my moment, so anyone onto one, give me a message. I’m smart, a good planner and cool under pressure 
*and the plastics industry would be my focus there, for one.
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ETA: it’s free too!
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