BOLSHEVIK JEWEL LOOT.

Taranaki Daily News, 28 October 1921, Page 3

BOLSHEVIK JEWEL LOOT.

£7,000,000 WORTH ON THE MARKETS. LONDON DIAMOND MERCHANT'S STORY OF SWINDLE. The attempts of the Bolsheviks in Russia to place on the world’s markets looted diamonds and other jewels worth £7,000,000 has led to so great an increase in the smuggling of precious stones that Americans have been forced to take steps to put an end to the practice. In a recent issue of The Daily Mail there appeared an advertisement published on behalf of the American Jewellers’ Protective Association offering a reward of 4000 dollars ( £1050) for information leading to the arrest and conviction of anyone for smuggling into the United States without payment of duty, pearls, diamonds, or other precious stones amounting to not less than 40,000 dollars ( £10,500) in value.

A London diamond merchant told a Daily Mail reporter that it is supposed that a considerable number of diamonds have already been smuggled into the United States.

“Customs officiate have visited jewellers and have seen stones which have ‘not passed through their hands,” he “Naturally the question is a grave one for the American jewellers, for if the duty of 40 per cent, on mounted stones; 20 per cent, on cut and unmounted stones, and 10 per cent, on stones in the rough has not been paid, the stones can be sold at a much lower price than those on which the duty has been paid. “At Revel, Bolshevist agents have had jewels worth £7,ooo,ooo,'principally diamonds, pearls, and emeralds, to sell. These jewels have been taken from banks and jewellers and private citizens. One of my clients in Moscow was shot in his office and all hfs jewels were taken “ft is supposed that a certain number of tlie.se jewels are being smuggled by agents, who very likely travel to the United States as immigrants. One man could easily hide away four large

stones’worth £lOO,OOO whose-entry free of duty into the United States would be enough to disturb (he market. “There are more than £300,000 of these Bolshevist diamonds ?n the hands of London dealers and a further instalment of precious stones, including many pearls, is expected soon from Russia. London has already ab-

sorbed about £1,000,000 worth of Russian jewels, I should say, •'One great reason for the smuggling is the fact that merchants buy the

jewels in Reval at full value, and as there is a ‘slump’ in the diamond trade they want to get a market for their goods in the United States by selling them at a lower rate than the normal. This they do by smuggling in the goods and avoiding the import duty.” Great ingenuity has been shown by people engaged in the diamond, smuggling traffic, which has a luj» owing to the high value and the compactness of the article tw be smuggled. Diamonds have been hidden in walking-sticks, in the lining of clothes, in the heels and soles of boots, in watches, and in the frames of pictures. Dogs have been employed in the traffic and have been A»de to swallow ihd preaioua stone*.