Chinese visitor swallows $14,000 diamond at Sri Lanka gem show | Inquirer News

Chinese visitor swallows $14,000 diamond at Sri Lanka gem show

/ 04:44 PM September 05, 2012

COLOMBO—A Chinese visitor to Sri Lanka’s biggest gem and jewellery exhibition was arrested for attempted theft on Wednesday after swallowing a diamond worth nearly $14,000, police said.

The 32-year-old Chinese man had asked the stall owner for a close inspection of the diamond on the opening day of Facets Sri Lanka, an annual exhibition in the capital Colombo.

“He had taken the diamond out of a display cabinet and appeared to be appraising it and suddenly put it in his mouth,” a police officer at the scene who declined to be named told AFP.

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“The owner saw this and alerted us,” he said, adding that the man was arrested and taken to Colombo National Hospital to be given laxatives.

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Police said the stall owner valued the missing diamond at 1.8 million rupees ($13,800).

Sri Lanka does not mine diamonds but it has a large gem and jewellery industry and is famed for its blue sapphires.

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TAGS: Colombo, Sri Lanka

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