ITAR-TASS News Agency
TASS
April 21, 2004 Wednesday 2:19 PM Eastern Time

Man carrying 3 kg of illegal diamonds detained at Moscow airport

MOSCOW

Customs officials at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo-2 airport have detained a
national of Armenia, who was trying to take into Russia a load of 2.6
kilograms of rough diamonds, press spokesmen for the airport’s
customs service said.

The smuggler, 39, was detained at 22:30 Moscow time Tuesday. When the
customers were checking the passengers of a Yerevan-Moscow flight,
they found that the man had a strange fabric belt under his sweater.

It contained 12 plastic bags with jewels the size of 0.5 carats to 2
carats. Their total weight was 2.65 kilograms.

Wednesday, the experts were working to establish the cost of the
confiscated consignment.

One of them indicated that a carat of a gem-quality stone would
usually cost about a hundred U.S. dollars, while the price of cut
diamonds would depend on the quality of cutting.

The Armenian man is now subject to a criminal case invoking charges
of smuggling.