Penelope (fictitious name) had a very valuable jewel that she had inherited from her parents. A 6.3 carat diamond set in a ring. His father had bought it in 1947 for one million pesetas in a jewelery shop on Passeig de Gràcia and its value had risen over the years. In 2016, after going through a period of economic hardship, the woman decided to turn to that precious asset and sell the diamond. Eight years later, the judge has sent to trial five people accused of stealing Penelope’s jewel. The trial has fallen to the eighth section of the Court of Barcelona. The jewel, however, has not appeared, as stated in the documentation to which La Vanguardia has had access.
In February 2016, Penelope contacted a jeweler she supposedly trusted and asked him to find buyers for the diamond. At the time, the jeweler was closing a deal with purportedly Swiss investors, but that was thwarted when the seller backed out. The jeweler thought he could use the same investors to sell Penelope’s jewel. “I have some interested investors”, he told him.
On February 2, 2016, Penélope and the jeweler removed the piece, which was deposited in a Banco Sabadell safe, and used a nail remover to separate the diamond from the ring. They then met with a gemologist sent by the supposed investors who put a price on the piece: 1.185 million euros. With the brilliant already out of the frame, the entourage met with two emissaries of the investors in a reserved room of the Omm hotel in Barcelona. They wore expensive suits and wore high-end watches, as investors willing to pay a fortune for a diamond were supposed to display. The jeweler brought the singing voice of the negotiations. They agreed on a final purchase price of 1,150,000 euros. The million euros would be paid by bank check and the rest in cash.
The next day, February 3, the sale would take place. Penélope woke up that morning thinking that the operation would take place in a bank branch with all the guarantees. However, at the last minute, her jeweler informed her of a change of location at the request of the buyers. The payment would finally be made at the Porta Fira hotel in Barcelona and would be all in cash. Apparently, the Swiss investors had changed their minds. The jeweler was aware of the perverse evolution of events, because at the last minute he agreed that he too would sell a batch of jewels that he had had for years and whose value rose to 175,000 euros.
In this way, the total amount of the operation was 1,375,000 euros, which the buyers were happily willing to pay. The agreed operation was as follows. The jeweler would guard the diamond and the rest of the jewels at the SB de l’Hospitalet hotel with the buyers’ gemmologist, while Penélope, who was accompanied by her husband, received the buyers’ money at the Porta Fira hotel, also from the Hospitalet. Once the payment was made, I would call the jeweler to deliver the piece.
Gathered in a business room, two emissaries and two bankers allegedly arrived from Switzerland showed Penélope and her husband 55 bundles with 25,000 euros each. While the woman was counting the bills with a machine, the two alleged bankers kept talking to her and harassing her. The bankers, in a trick typical of trilers, played a trick on him that consisted of giving him the bills so that he could count them and when they gave him a new bundle, they put the bill in a bag that they hid under the table and they filled the briefcase that they would eventually hand over to him with fake bills. Just in case, they kept talking to Penelope to avoid being found out.
When the operation was finished, the woman, overwhelmed, called the jeweler to deliver the diamond. The entourage went down to the hotel lobby together, but before saying goodbye the bankers locked the briefcase with a key and gave it to Penélope. When they were already heading for the exit, they threw the key and left very quickly. The woman took a while to open the bolt, giving the scammers enough time to flee. Inside the briefcase, there were only fake bills.
Penelope, the jeweler and two intermediaries who had contacted the fake investors ended up filing a fraud complaint with the Mossos days later after doubting the legality of their operation. The Mossos found several fingerprints on the fake tickets that allowed the suspects to be identified with the images from the hotel’s security cameras.
They were not Swiss bankers, but professional swindlers of Serbian origin specialized in stealing precious jewels using the RIP Deal method, the trickster maneuver they used in this case. They operated all over Europe, although the first was arrested in Castelldefels and had an open case in France for stealing another diamond. The jewel, he said, was sold in Belgium. The rest of the group fell a year later thanks to the issuance of several European arrest warrants. They all went to prison, but the slowness of justice meant that they were released scattered across Europe. The prosecution will request that they be located again, as they suspect that they may not appear at trial.
