An Israeli diamond dealer traced a $300,000 stolen gem to Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue, but the trail went cold after a laboratory refused to reveal information about its new “owner,” according to a lawsuit.
Tel Aviv dealer Yondor Diamonds discovered last summer that a cunning thief posing as a customer swapped a five-carat diamond in Yondor’s inventory with a brown-stained knock-off.
The dealer traced the stone to New York, using its microscopic, laser-inscribed identification number.
Officials at the Gemological Institute of America in Manhattan’s Diamond District admitted the rock passed through its lab before it was reported stolen, but they declined to say where it went, according to the suit Yondor’s owners filed in Manhattan Supreme Court.