more on Big Diamond theft - a Hollywood movie in the making - right now

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

------ Forwarded Message
From: Peter Sahlstrom <peter () stormlash net>
Date: Sat, 22 Feb 2003 11:13:56 -0500 (EST)
To: dave () farber net
Subject: Re: [IP] Big Diamond theft - a Hollywood movie in the making -
right now

Dave,

Some thoughts (and links) on the diamond heist.  Although I didn't
hear about it until this morning, I wouldn't say the heist has been
underreported.  Google News turns up quite a few results on the topic,
including most of the major news organizaitons and the Associated
Press.  And since they haven't released any new information about the
heist yet, it is very difficult for the papers to speculate on the
perpitrators, much less to report anything new.

As to the suggestions in the last message that the raid was carried
out by money launderers, smugglers, Al-Qaeda, or the Israili
government...well, I find that unlikely.  There has been no new
evidence released to the public on this topic, and until there is, we
could just as easilly speculate that the theft was conducted by Martha
Stewart (though the diamonds left scattered on the floor wouldn't
quite fit her modus operandi).

If we're going to just start naming anyone who we could potentially
profit from hurting Belgium, we could just as easilly blame the CIA as
Mossaad.  New York is also one of the big 3 diamond centers of the
world, and Belgium has been something of a barrier to the current
administration's Iraq policies...

But it almost certainly wasn't any of these groups.  The fact is, we
don't know anything yet.  When they release some new information, you
can bet that the news organizations will cover it.

Here are some of the better links I found on the Diamond Heist story:

The Guardian's story from the 19th (more information than most others)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,898531,00.html

BBC story from the 18th
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/2782305.stm

BBC followup from the 19th
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/2781791.stm

The AP story that most newspapers carried
http://asia.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/europe/02/18/belgium.diamonds.ap/

The Straits Times reports that the diamonds are almost entirely untrackable
http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/topstories/story/0,4386,172832,00.html

Also, an article on the botched Millenium Star robbery back in 2000
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/world/DailyNews/dome001107.html

-- 
Peter Sahlstrom      | "And they probably redesigned the whole
peter () stormlash net  | sickbay, too! I know engineers, they LOVE to
http://stormlash.net | change things." - Leonard McCoy, ST:TMP


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