Woman undergoes surgery to recover stolen 6 carat diamond she swallowed

A Chinese woman who swallowed a six-carat (1.2g) diamond was forced to take laxatives and endure colonoscopy. Jiang Xulian, 39, stole the diamond worth Thb10m (£180,000) diamond from the Bangkok Gems and Jewellery Fair in Nonthaburi, Thailand.

She confessed to her theft to police when an X-ray showed the stone in her large intestine. The woman was later given laxatives before she and her alleged partner-in-crime – identified as Hae Ying, 34 – were held in police custody for legal action.

The couple had been brought to the attention of Thai police by an exhibitor at the fair. CCTV images showed the pair visiting the exhibition stand, where they allegedly switched the six-carat diamond with a fake, after asking to give it a closer inspection while at the jewellery fair.

The stall owner reported Jiang and Hae to the police, and they were detained at Suvarnabhumi airport on Thursday night. The pair tried to evade arrest by claiming they were tourists returning from their holidays, but their tale was proven to be fiction when a scan revealed the precious stone in Jiang’s stomach.

Jiang was given laxatives to speed up the movement of the diamond through her digestive system, but the diamond stayed in place. Jiang finally agreed to have an operation to remove the diamond, after being told that the jewel could cause damage to her digestive system.

The stone was identified as the stolen gemstone by its owner after its removal. The couple face up to three years in prison if convicted of the crime.

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Traveller caught in India with monkey in his underwear

Customs authorities in India have arrested a man who was attempting to board a flight at New Delhi’s international airport with a monkey in his underwear, a report said on Monday.

The man, who was detained along with two other travellers, had arrived from Bangkok and was about to take a connecting flight to Dubai on Jet Airways, the Press Trust of India reported.

Personnel at the airport found the seven-inch (17-centimetre) loris, a type of monkey native to India and southeast Asia, “in one of the passengers’ underwear during the security check,” PTI said.

Another loris was discovered in a dustbin at the Indira Gandhi International airport.

“They had abandoned him as they were unable to carry him,” a senior security official told the news agency.

The passengers, named as Hamad Al-Dhaheri, Mohammed Al-Shamsi and Rashid Al-Shamsi, were handed over to Wildlife and Customs Department for further questioning and were later arrested by customs police.

Authorities were trying to determine the exact origin of the monkeys.

Customs officials recently caught an Indian man at Mumbai’s main airport with 10 turtles in his underwear, which he was trying to smuggle into the city from Bangkok, the Hindustan Times reported last week.

They also seized six Persian cats, three poisonous tarantula spiders and 11 birds eggs from the man and his two accomplices, the report said.

The newspaper quoted a customs official saying the men were fined and sent back to Bangkok with the protected species and eggs they were trying to smuggle.

http://www.france24.com/en/20120910-traveller-caught-india-with-monkey-pants-report