Thailand’s Blue Diamond Heist

Spoiler Alert.

A Thai gardener manages to steal 200 pounds of jewels from a Saudi prince. He airmails his loot to his home in northern Thailand and makes the getaway. He gets arrested, but not before he manages to sell some of the jewels. That same evening two different Saudi diplomats were murdered. Execution style. Days later, a Saudi businessman gets kidnapped and is never found. Thailand manages to round up the unsold jewels and return it to Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia isn’t pleased to find out that they were imitations! They then find rumored press photos of the wives of Thai bureaucrats wearing new diamond necklaces strikingly similar to those that were stolen. Cases remained unsolved. Jewels remain missing.

This was a surprisingly refreshing and entertaining read. It feels wrong for me to read an article that isn’t fiction and find it entertaining. It’s not too current. In fact, it refers to a case that took place twenty years ago. However, this event still has dire implications on relations between Saudi Arabia and Thailand to this very day.

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1969920,00.html