Russians, NY Diamond Dealer & Surface to Air Missles?

[fire&ice]

Geez, this is the stuff spy novels are made of.

Anyone see this on CBS morning show? 30K in cash was paid as a deposit to a NY Diamond Dealer for the surface to air missle. The money was then wired to a Russian account. That''s all they said. It was unclear to me whether the NY diamond dealer was in on the sting or was he/she involved. Anyone know?

I would think this kind of money moves rather routinely in the diamond district.

 

[gemexplorer]

Yes, the world all have known of some one in the NY Diamond district was into the missle sales to terrorists

But so what, all business have their own brand of "theives" . If you get overly upset about this - You will find out the proper owners of DeBeers are not allowed to be into the US or they will be arrest for "trade Monopoly" . How will that grab you ?

And for as much want to get behind the so called Kimberly protocol-- Guberlein lab in Switzerland already has its testing where they can authenticate the origin of any diamonds and gems bases on the search for "trace minerals " almost like a human DNA - they can generally find out the trace minerals and there is one possible link to the diamonds or gems and maybe some general ideas where these gems are from. Technologies are here like the measuring of angles of diamonds done by Holloway. But how many in their own status quo is ready to make that change ? That is why I see business revolution are all positive evolutions

Changes can be wonderful and I am all for the HCA / or Holloway diamond ..why not ?

 

[mike04456]

The whole thing was a set-up by the FBI. These agents went looking to see if they could buy a missile on the open market, and this guy took them up on it. Apparently he used this diamond dealer, an Orthodox Jew named Yehuda Abraham (!), to wire the money he thought was buying a missile for a group of Muslim terrorists (the FBI agents). Talk about strange bedfellows. I doubt Abraham knew what was going on although he may well have known he was breaking the law with this wire transfer (there are rules about international movement of money that were apparently violated here).

Incidentally, it's not Guebelin but HRD that claims to be able to trace the source of diamonds. Guebelin will do origin of colored gems but not diamonds. The process is still in its infancy and a long way from any practical applications. De Beers is funding the work, actually, because they hope to use it to deter mine theft. It's apparently not much use for conflict diamonds, since most of those are alluvuial in origin and this process can only tell where the diamond originally came out of the ground, not where it ended up after being eroded and transported to an alluvial deposit.

 

[fire&ice]

Worrying about Debeer's monopoly on diamonds.

or

Worrying about someone laudering money for the purchase of a surface to air missle that could kill hundreds of innocent lives.

UMMMMMMMMM.........no brainer.

I hope the diamond dealer didn't know what was *ultimately* up w/ the transfer (regardless if the transaction would not have taken place).

 

[mike04456]

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On 8/27/2003 4:39:18 PM fire&ice wrote:

I hope the diamond dealer didn't know what was *ultimately* up w/ the transfer (regardless if the transaction would not have taken place).

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It's highly doubtful if you ask me. Abraham is apparently the 76-year-old head of some old 47th Street diamond firm. The feds have historically not paid much attention to how the money gets moved around in the diamond district, but have really started cracking down recently because of concerns over terrorist funding, etc. So what he did was in part "business as usual." As I understand it, he's not being charged with conspiracy to import the missle but only with some form of money-laundering.

 

[fire&ice]

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On 8/27/2003 5:37:41 PM LawGem wrote:

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On 8/27/2003 4:39:18 PM fire&ice wrote:


I hope the diamond dealer didn't know what was *ultimately* up w/ the transfer (regardless if the transaction would not have taken place).----------------

So what he did was in part "business as usual." As I understand it, he's not being charged with conspiracy to import the missle but only with some form of money-laundering.
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In all seriousness, that does make me feel better. When your in a business to move major money, especially when it's cash, it happens. I know it happens in my business.