The South African police are not the absolute best in terms of customs control and I know this from personal experience (you can buy lighters full of lighter fluid after security in both major international airports and my friend was handed his full bottle of sunscreen back to him to take on the plane once). Please watch Trevor Noah's "any weapons?" skit for hilarity around this topic.
But they finally caught someone! A diamond-smuggler swallowed 220 diamonds and tried to leave South Africa with them. Didn't work so well for him, as a body scan at OR Tambo airport (the Joburg international airport) revealed them in his stomach.
How much is 220 diamonds worth? A cool
2.3 million USD. No big deal.
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| don't they look fake? too beautiful to be real |
Random Kate Thoughts: South Africa is famous for its diamonds, as is neighbor-to-the-north Botswana. The minerals are so incredibly valuable but again it's usually the company that makes the profit and not the workers themselves. Hopefully many of you have seen the movie "Blood Diamond," which I actually loved, though it does perpetuate the "white savior" model of African story-telling. Many people have died over diamonds, as well as over the other vast resources that the continent has, (see yesterday's post about rubber). It's sad, but I'm glad the smuggler was caught. Back to this specific story, try to not think about how "the diamonds...were recovered." (thx NYT)
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