Thief Caught After Swapping Parcels Of Diamonds At Dubai Auction
July 27, 14
(IDEX Online News) – A parcel of Zimbabwe diamonds worth “millions of dollars” from the Jinan diamond mine was reportedly stolen on Tuesday at an auction taking place at the Dubai Diamond Exchange (DDE).
A buyer of Lebanese descent swapped one of the two Jinan gem parcels containing diamonds worth millions of dollars with parcel valued at just $10,000, according to bulawayo24.com.
Jinan company officials only discovered the theft of the diamonds when they saw discrepancies on the weights of the swapped parcels. Security video footage was used to identify the alleged thief.
"A buyer of Lebanese origin was caught on camera switching his inferior diamonds with gem parcels from Jinan," a source told the news organization. "He took away the Jinan diamonds to his hotel room."
The buyer confessed to stealing the 54 pieces of diamonds, which were all recovered and the case was reported to the police who detained the man.
Jinan, together with Mbada Diamonds, Anjin, Diamond Mining Corporation, DZT-OZGEO, Marange Resources and Kusena, submitted parcels totaling 960,000 carats at the two-week DDE auction from which Zimbabwe hopes to earn over $100 million.
The auction, which began on July 20 and will last until August, is Zimbabwe's third sale this year following the January auction where the country earned $70 million, and a March sale which saw sales of $29.2 million.