Two pounds of cut diamonds seized in Moscow
By JCK Online Staff -- JCK Online, 12/8/2004 2:00:00 AM
Customs official said Tuesday they seized nearly two pounds of cut diamonds and other jewelry from a Russian tourist at a Moscow airport, The Associated Press reports.
The unidentified 33-year-old woman from the Siberian region of Buryatia was returning from the United Arab Emirates on Monday when she was stopped at Moscow's Domodedovo airport, the customs service reportedly said.
Customs officials X-raying her handbag noticed a valuable watch inside. Upon searching her bags and her body, they found more than 35,000 stones and various white-gold and diamond jewelry pieces—none of which she declared, the service reportedly said.
Airport customs head Alexander Molokanov reportedly said there were so many individual stones it took them 12 hours to count just half of them.
``We couldn't even count them all,'' Molokanov reportedly said.
Prosecutors planned to file smuggling charges against the woman, who reportedly told officials she had bought the items for herself in UAE, paying $115,000.
The stones and the jewelry were worth as much as $1 million, the agency reportedly said.
The United Arab Emirates is a center of diamond trade, although the world's main hub for the gems is Antwerp, Belgium.
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