The Blue Diamond Affair

In 1989, Kriangkrai Techamong, a Thai gardener

, stole approximately 200 pounds of diamonds, gold, and other jewelry from the palace of Saudi Prince, Faisal bin Fahd. Techamong hid the loot, including rubies the size of chicken eggs and a 50-carat blue diamond bigger than the Hope Diamond, in a vacuum cleaner bag, and then carried it off the premises. In a particularly brazen move, he then mailed the stolen goods to his home in Lampang province in Thailand, and then travelled there himself. The heist has strained relations between the two countries for over two decades.

The Royal Thai Police arrested Techamong and recovered the majority of the haul, but the gardener managed to sell diamonds and other jewelry before being apprehended. Techamong received a seven-year prison sentence, but was released after three. Three officials from the Saudi Embassy in Bangkok were killed soon after the thiefs apprehension. Saudi businessman and royal family friend Mohammad al-Ruwaili flew to Bangkok to sort things out, but he was kidnapped and killed.

Lieutenant General Chalor Kerdthes sent a team to Saudi Arabia with the recovered gems, but Saudi officials determined that many were fakes and that the blue diamond was missing. Rumors circulated that the wives of Thai bureaucrats were seen wearing diamond necklaces strikingly similar to stolen Saudi gems at charity events soon thereafter. Found guilty of ordering the murders of family members of a diamond dealer involved in the affair in 1995, Kerdthes himself was sentenced to death by the Thai Supreme Court. That sentence was later reduced to fifty years in prison. Six other policemen were convicted in related charges.

As a result of the intrigue, Saudi Arabia stopped allowing Thai workers into the country in June of 1990, and also discouraged Saudis from travel to Thailand. Thai workers in Saudi Arabia numbered 150,000 in 1989 and 10,000 in 2006. The robbery has cost Thailand billions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of jobs for Thai workers in the oil industry. The reasons cited for the blockage by Saudi diplomat Nabil Ashri are the repeated failures of the Thai authorities to adequately solve or explain any of the cases to the Saudi authorities.

According to Thailands Department of Special Investigation (DSI), a comparable agency to the American FBI, there is no evidence that the murders are connected to the heist, or that the blue diamond even exists. Saudi diplomat Mohammed Khoja, however, is certain the crimes are related. Khoja believes that the jeweler who was killed by order of Lieutenant Kerdthes is responsible for the imitation gems brought to Saudi Arabia by the Thai government. According to Thai police, the cause of death for the jewelers family was accidental.

by: schatzistef

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