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FIRE IN THE EARTH
certain
downtown office and purchased a small diamond. The price he had to pay,
after a little haggling, was below the rock-bottom legitimate price. He
knew then he was on the right track. The operative wondered: Where is
this dealer getting the diamonds from?
He
began to investigate the dealer's history, his background, his family,
his bank account. He learned that his father-in-law, a retired diamond
polisher living in Brooklyn, had two sons in the diamond business and
five daughters, four of whom were married to diamond merchants. That
wasn't illogical. The diamond long has been a "family affair." But the
operative also learned that the sons were absenting themselves
frequently from business. Not only that; the bank accounts of the
sons-in-law of the retired polisher showed balances far greater than
they possibly could have achieved through their legitimate business.
The
Customs Division asked itself: where did all this money come from? And
where did these sons go during their frequent absences? Let's ask the
State Department to do some checking, someone suggested. The State
Department did—with startling results. It discovered that not only the
two sons but four of the five sons-in-law had been making a number of
trips to Antwerp for some months. One of the sons and one of the
sons-in-law, in fact, were in Antwerp at the moment.
So
the American consul in Antwerp asked the Antwerp police to locate these
boys. They found that the son-in-law had an office, that the son had
sailed from France for New York on the Ile de France three days
before. When he arrived his luggage was searched, nothing incriminating
was found. This seemed strange, because the bank statements indicated
that the downtown New York dealer was getting in diamond goods valued
at retail at about a million dollars
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