DIAMOND TRICK

Evening Star, Issue 19789, 13 February 1928, Page 10

DIAMOND TRICK

BUSINESS MEN DUPED. Detectives in many European countries and the United States are combining with Scotland Yard in a search for a jewel trickster. Some time ago a group of prosperous Loudon business men were introduced to an apparently well-to-do and respectable man about fifty years of age, who approached them on the subject of a business enterprise. Tho venture, he explained, required capital, but he had only diamonds to the value of £9.000 which he did not wish to sell. Would they care to advance him money on such a security?' A diamond expert agreed that the .stones were worth £9,000, and a transaction took place. The jewels were carefully packed and sealed under the eyes of the assembled company, and in accordance with an agreement were deposited in a bank for safe custody for six months. The business men thought as lime went on that they would have their security revalued. The new valuation proved it to be worth no more than its value as a. packet of paste stones. The experts who originally valued the stones and the duped business men are convinced that they handled genuine diamonds. They are trying now to imagine by what sleight of hand the trickster substituted the false stones for tho real ones.