How To Hide 1Kg of Diamonds

So let’s start with giving an evaluation. A parcel of stones at VVG1 to VVG2 at an average size of .35 carats with F-G color will net out to about $3250 per carat. 1kg of such stones will be about 14,285 stones worth about 46.5 million dollars US. So really the question is how would you hide about 15,000 little things worth 45 million bucks. Your ability to hide them depends largely upon one thing, which is your ability to sell them.

If you have no ability to sell any of the stones, then you can only use conventional means, IE something anybody could think up on a middle class salary. In which case you might as well just throw them in the ocean because you’re going to get yourself killed or jailed the moment one person finds out. So there’s a Clean Approach and a Dirty Approach.

Clean Approach
So the first thing a smart guy will do is to approach someone with moolah and someone you can trust with your life. So for me, I happen to know a couple such people as I am fortunate in that regard. One of them is a Wall Street broker. He would know someone who deals with that level of investment with whom I would partner. I convert a fraction of my diamonds to cash, essentially 2 million worth, and give the other people the impression that this is the extent of my cache. I then set up an entity through which I can employ my own skills and improve them. This would include a cursory understanding of the diamond trade and a couple of trips to such traders and producers. The aim of these trips is to determine how far I can get away with selling diamonds legitimately without being a known quantity in the business. In other words, I’m setting up a diamond laundering business, but I can remain overground and live fairly large.

Dirty Approach
The other way to go is go underground, which means I live low rather like a card sharp. I produce the occasional rock in card games, to used car dealers, to pawn shops all at a level that people will immediately be able to handle and not talk about. In this case I have to do a lot of low rent stashing and have a 5 year plan to raise about 200k per year.

OK so either approach gets me to the point at which I can use sophisticated means to hide my stash. It costs money to hide money.

The Stashes

One - The Big Pentagram
I’m thinking undeveloped land in New Zealand would be the best thing for buried treasure. It’s not hard to get there. It’s not a dodgy place. I’d keep the biggest fraction there, roughly half, in five plots underground in a pattern. How about a pentagram 100 meters across? Uncleared woods. GPS tracked. Iron rebar markers with RFID tags. On a hill. (25 million)

Two - Obvious
I’m going to make a mistake. So it might as well be a stupid mistake. So I’m going to seed the stupid mistake ahead of time so the over-confident detective gets to talk shit. Which means I’m going to put the stash under my mother’s grave, or in a mausoleum niche having bribed a groundskeeper at a cemetery in my town. I will be observed making regular trips. (2 million)

Three - Attorney Client Privilege
This is the first technically challenging one to place. I troll around to find an attorney like Go Call Saul from Breaking Bad. Living in LA with its drug trade, I’m sure I can find a gang attorney relatively easily. I will put it into this attorney’s hands. I don’t know or don’t care where the attorney puts it, but he only gets his cut as trustee based on his ability to sell the diamonds himself. This is the one I plan to live from. (7 million)

Four - Charity
I use geocaching to place a handful of random stones into that game. Once a year I travel out of the state and place a rock into a geocache. I drop a rock off into the coffers of various churches in my travels. (<1 million)

Five - Rich Bitches
I develop a rapport with douchebags of all sorts who can fence this kind of stuff on their own. I develop a reputation and then flame out quickly. It will cost me getting my ass kicked but among that crowd I will clearly appear broke and flamed out. Kills suspicion. (1 million)

Six - Other Hidey Holes
Smaller versions of the pentagram. All self-service all visited during peak tourist season.

1. Black River National Forest: Michigan
2. Mount Washington: New Hampshire
3. Hot Springs: Arkansas
4. Sturgis: South Dakota
5. Gifford Woods State Park: Vermont

And I periodically check Quora, detective novels and CIA spycraft legends just to make sure I’m up on the best ideas. After all, I’ve got nothing else to do.