PM Prayut Chan-o-cha visited Saudi Arabia earlier this week, and Thailand and Saudi mended relations they broke 33 years ago following the Blue Diamond Affair in 1989 the place a Thai cleaner in Saudi’s royal palace stole diamonds worth US$20 million from the prince. The subsequent yr, three Saudi diplomats and a businessman attempting to recover the gems have been killed. According to the state-run Saudi Press Agency, Prayut gave “his sincere regrets for the tragic instances that took place in Thailand between 1989 to 1990.”
Back in 1989, the Saudi prince and his wife had been on vacation for three months when the cleaner began to hide the diamonds in locations across the palace the place he knew no one else would discover them. Then, over a month, he slowly moved them right into a cargo supply that he ultimately despatched to Thailand. Before the palace may discover out the cleaner had stolen the diamonds, he had already fled again to Thailand.
To get the diamonds via customs, the cleaner left an envelope with money for bribery in his cargo, and a notice saying he had pornographic materials in the cargo and most popular that authorities not search it. Thai authorities took the bribe. The cleaner kept some of the diamonds, and offered others. But only one month later, Thai police arrested the cleaner in his home after Saudi authorities alerted them. Authorities ultimately retrieved the diamonds.
But Ironclad stated 80% of the diamonds were missing, and many that had been returned had been pretend. Then a photograph was published of a senior Thai official wearing a necklace that seemed eerily similar to one of many missing Saudi necklaces.
In February 1990, Thai gunmen shot and killed three Saudi diplomats in Bangkok who had been trying to find the diamonds. A Saudi businessman who travelled to Thailand to research the case of the lacking diamonds was kidnapped. His body was never discovered, and many suspect he was killed. An extremely uncommon blue diamond was by no means recovered..