When an US$80,000 (AU$102,476) platinum ring set with a 6.04-carat diamond was stolen from his store in September 2013, Jeffrey Hess, co-owner Old Northeast Jewelers in Florida, US, began scouring diamond trading websites in search of the ring.
He believed the ring would turn up somewhere and his instinct eventually proved correct. In April 2014, Hess came across a grading report for a diamond of the same size that had been posted by a New York jeweller on an online service.
According to industry publication JCK, Hess downloaded the report and found it had almost the exact same cut measurements as the one stolen from his store, only with a different grade.
While the diamond had originally been given a Gemological Institute of America (GIA) grading of L SI1, the stone in the report had an I VS grading by the Israel affiliate of European Gemological Laboratory.
After further investigation, and with the assistance of the GIA, Hess was able to determine that the diamond was indeed the same one that had been stolen from his store, however it was now being sold as a loose diamond without its original setting.
Police reportedly found that the diamond had travelled from Florida to New York, overseas to Israel and then back to New York.
Once identified, the diamond was seized and returned to Hess on Tuesday 3 March – one and a half years after it was taken.
Old Northeast Jewelers co-owner Katrina Hess told The St Petersburg Tribune that she and her husband weren’t sure what they were going to do with the diamond now but speculated they might sell it as a loose stone instead of re-setting it in a ring.
Reports indicate that police are still investigating the incident.
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