Posted on 12/13/2024 3:26:08 PM PST by E. Pluribus Unum
It was an ordinary day at his Los Angeles law office when John Nadolenco opened a letter from Brazil enlisting his help in a mission to retrieve a stolen, and quite possibly cursed, 836-pound emerald.
The year was 2014, the heyday of the Nigerian prince email scam, and the up-and-coming attorney was no fool. “I immediately thought it was just completely fake, a total hoax,” he said. “I was like, ‘I’m not falling for this one. I’m smarter than this.’”
He tossed the letter in the trash.
But Nadolenco’s boss asked if, as a favor, he could look into the Indiana Jones-esque request to reclaim the Bahia Emerald. So Nadolenco skeptically reached out to a colleague in his firm’s Brazil office.
But how did the stone, which weighs about as much as a full-grown bison, end up in L.A. County? And how could Brazil get it back? It was Nadolenco’s mission to find out.
The stone, he learned, was smuggled to the U.S. in 2005, and a series of lamentable tales — some fact, some fiction — have followed...
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
Score two Coals for you!
I hate it when that happens. One minute you got a business deal, the next minute you got a rock, and then somebody else takes that away. Would have made an awesome door stop.
When I closed the paywall popup the whole article was available. Or try this...
click on the “X” in the upper right hand corner and you can read the article. Twists and turns. Fun!
Greed.
WOW one of the world’s most famous gemstones — the 180,000-carat Bahia Emerald.
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