It was an ordinary day in a Los Angeles law office when John Nadorenko opened a letter from Brazil asking for help in a mission to recover 836 pounds of stolen and possibly cursed emeralds.
2014 was the heyday of the Nigerian Prince email scam, and this up-and-coming lawyer was no fool.
“I immediately thought this was a total fake, a complete hoax,” he said. “I was like, ‘I’m not into this.’ I’m smarter.”
He threw the letter in the trash.
But Nadorenko’s boss asked him if he could consider an Indiana Jones-like request to get the Bahia Emerald back. So, skeptical, Nadorenko contacted a colleague at the company’s Brazilian office.
The Bahia Emerald is a gigantic gem weighing 836 pounds and the subject of a legal battle among a colorful crowd of gem traders, miners and businessmen vying for the precious gem.
(Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department)
He is confident that not only are the Bahia emeralds authentic, but that the Brazilian government is willing to use his legal skills to recover the gems, which were being held by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department amid litigation over ownership. I was surprised to learn that he was interested.
This emerald was extracted from a mine in the Carnaiba Mountains in the Bahia region of northeastern Brazil.
The name “Bahia Emerald” is a misnomer. Because it’s not one gemstone, but nine dazzling crystals trapped within a rough black rock measuring 30 inches wide and 33 inches high. Each crystal is as thick as a cola bottle and is thought to be the largest single emerald ever discovered.
But how did this stone, which weighs as much as a full-grown bison, make it to L.A. County? And how can Brazil get it back? Nadorenko’s mission was to find out.
This stone was smuggled into the United States in 2005, and a series of deplorable stories (some fact, some fiction) have ensued among those who claim to own this stone, and this emerald has been cursed. He realized that he had developed a belief that he was under control.
A Bay Area building contractor swore (probably false) that the house burned down (true) with the title deed inside. Investors in failed tech startups almost lost their gems in Hurricane Katrina’s floods (true). A plumber in Northern California claimed to have been kidnapped by a Brazilian warlord while in possession of Emerald (false).
Generally, emerald values are highly variable and are often set at what a buyer is willing to pay for them. Bahia Emerald’s valuations range from a few thousand dollars to an astonishing $925 million. Its value is particularly difficult to determine due to its enormous size and unique nature.
“Our final assessment is that we will never sell it because it has irreplaceable value for us,” said Fernando Filgueiras de Araujo, a federal prosecutor in Brazil’s foreign disputes division.
Very few people have seen this, even though many people are trying to get it. No one in the Brazilian government has ever seen this emerald in person, and neither has Nadorenko.
One of the few people to have seen the stone was Scott Miller, a now-retired Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department detective who seized the emerald from a Las Vegas warehouse in 2008.
Investigation of serious crimes. Scott Miller (left) and Mark Gaiman of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department pose with a Bahia emerald seized from a storage center in Las Vegas on December 19, 2008. Mr. Miller has since retired.
(Scott Miller/Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department)
“It wasn’t as beautiful as the pictures,” Miller said. “It was a big black rock, almost like lava, but it had huge emerald spiers sticking out of it, and it was really amazing to see.”
Responsible for the beginning of the myth surrounding the Bahia emerald are two Brazilians, Erson Alves Ribeiro and Rui Saraiva Filho, who acquired the stone after it was pulled from a mine in 2001.
What happened to the rock over the next 23 years is a subject of controversy and confusion. The following timeline of the stone’s complex history is based on facts revealed in a Los Angeles County Superior Court decision regarding its ownership.
In September 2001, two friends from Northern California, mining consultant Kenneth Connett and building contractor Anthony Thomas, as part of a Hail Mary effort to save a failing high-tech startup, according to court documents. I flew to Brazil to buy emeralds.
Thomas had poured more than $200,000 into a digital imaging company, Digital Reflections Inc. (DRI), which was in dire financial shape and on the verge of going out of business.
The company learned of an investment opportunity that promised a very high return on a $100 million investment, and the following get-rich-so-emerald scheme was born.
Mr. Connett, Mr. Thomas and DRI executive Wayne Catlett plan to secure $25 million worth of small-cut and polished emeralds from Mr. Ribeiro and Mr. Filho. They then planned to use the stone as collateral for a $100 million loan needed to participate in an investment program.
The idea was to make some quick money, pay Ribeiro and Filho over $3 million, save the bankrupt company, and live happily ever after.
Things didn’t go as planned.
First, by the time Connet and Thomas arrived in Brazil in September 2001, no one at DRI was able to obtain a loan that could use cut emeralds as collateral. However, during the trip Ribeiro and Filho took an American with them. Check out the Bahia emeralds in storage.
The Bahia Emerald is not a single gemstone, but consists of nine dazzling crystals encased in a coarse black rock measuring 30 inches wide and 33 inches tall.
(Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department)
A month later, Thomas wired Ribeiro $60,000. The fee was said to have been for the purchase of the Bahian emeralds, but court documents say the money was used to cover the costs of cutting and polishing the emerald collection that the Brazilians had amassed for the DRI loan. .
Thomas told the court that the Bahia Emerald mysteriously disappeared while being transported to California, and that he suspected the corrupt Brazilian government was responsible, which is why he never bothered to report the theft. spoke. When asked where her bill was, Thomas said her Morgan Hill home was destroyed in a 2006 fire.
Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Michael Johnson ultimately ruled against the ownership claims, writing in a 2014 ruling that “Thomas’ testimony is like sand in the wind, constantly changing and morphing.” “I was there,” he wrote. Thomas filed for bankruptcy a few weeks later.
Thomas never owned the stone, instead it was sent to his friend-turned-rival Connet via FedEx from Brazil in 2005.
Connett then shipped the stone from San Jose to a storage facility in New Orleans, where it remained submerged for several weeks after Hurricane Katrina flooded the city that year.
At the time, Connet was still working with DRI staff and two Brazilians to use Bahian emeralds as collateral for loans, but as time passed and no progress was made, the team decided to Decided to sell.
To do so, they enlisted the help of two more colorful figures. A plumber from Northern California named Larry Biegler and a jewelry dealer from Florida named Jerry Ferrara. Both men later engaged in a legal battle, claiming ownership of the emeralds.
The value of Bahia emeralds is the subject of great debate. The jewel’s highest valuation was an astonishing $925 million. But some say it’s an ugly, mostly black rock that’s likely worth thousands of dollars, not millions.
(Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department)
Mr. Biegler shipped the stone back to San Jose in August 2007, but his attempts to secure a buyer were unsuccessful. Wired reported that Biegler later told Ferrara that he had been kidnapped by a Brazilian warlord and asked him to send a ransom.
In April 2008, Ferrara decided to take over the sale of the stones and had them transported to a storage facility in El Monte.
Ferrara also had trouble finding a buyer, but had no problem using the stone as collateral for an expensive diamond deal with Idaho businessman Kit Morrison.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison paid $1.3 million upfront for the diamond, but the deal fell through and he suddenly found himself inadvertently the owner of an 836-pound emerald. In September 2008, with Ferrara’s help, he moved the stone to Las Vegas.
Not satisfied with the disappearance of his precious emerald, Mr. Biegler reported that the stone had been stolen from a storage facility in El Monte.
At this point, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department detectives enter the scene. Unable to determine who was the true owner of the stone, Miller and colleague Mark Gaiman decided to track it down and let the courts decide.
The two went to Mr. Morrison’s home in snowy Idaho, where he threatened to chase the jewelry and open all the presents under the Christmas tree, before Mr. Morrison’s lawyer told him the jewelry was in Las Vegas. Mr. Miller said.
So the detectives drove back to the Boise airport, landed in Los Angeles at 2 a.m., met up with colleagues at 4 a.m. and headed to meet Mr. Morrison at a high-security storage center in Las Vegas.
“He let us in, and when we opened the crate, there was an emerald,” Miller said. “It took five people to load the crates into the van. We took some quick photos for evidence, then fully armed we boarded the caravan and drove back to Los Angeles.”
This was part of their heritage stolen from Brazil. They felt wronged and wanted to take it back.
— Attorney John Nadorenko talks about Brazil’s efforts to recover emeralds
Shortly afterward, U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents contacted the Brazilian government to inform them that the agency was in possession of a large Brazilian emerald.
An ownership battle over the stone began in 2009 in Los Angeles County Superior Court. The dispute continued five years later when Nadorenko received a letter from the Brazilian government and launched another legal battle through federal court to have the stones returned to Brazil.
Nadorenko remembers being extremely stressed when it appeared that a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge would rule on ownership of the jewelry before Brazil had even finished filing its case.
“This was not just a lawsuit,” Nadorenko told the Brazilians. “This was part of their heritage that was stolen from Brazil. They felt wronged and wanted it back.”
In June 2015, Judge Johnson ruled that the stone did have an owner, stating that FM Holdings had “provided evidence establishing clear ownership of the Bahia emeralds.” The company was co-owned by Mr. Morrison, an Idaho businessman. his business partner Todd Armstrong; and Ferrara, a Florida gemstone trader.
But, as is often the case with huge gems, there were some twists and turns.
Days before the stones were released, a federal judge ordered the emeralds to be kept in secure storage pending the conclusion of a federal lawsuit with Brazil.
Meanwhile, in Brazil, government lawyers had accused Mr. Filho and Mr. Ribeiro of illegally mining gemstones and smuggling them out of the country.
Federal prosecutor Filgueiras de Araujo said the men were convicted in 2017 after a lengthy trial and appeals process, but because the crime has a statute of limitations, they will not serve any prison time. It is said that
Nevertheless, their convictions allowed Brazil to invoke its mutual legal assistance treaty with the United States and seek an order for the confiscation of the emeralds in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton approved the forfeiture motion on November 21, arguing that U.S. “intervenors” had no rights to the stones. The real owner, he declared, was Brazil.
If no appeal is filed, the next step will be to schedule a handover ceremony to hand over the stone to Brazilian authorities and display it in a museum.
Nadorenko said she is interested in eventually getting to know the gem and would like to attend the ceremony. He didn’t ask for it earlier because it wasn’t necessary for the lawsuit. But he wants to see it now, with some trepidation.
“I’d love to see it in person, but in my mind I might put salt on my left shoulder and cross my fingers behind my back just to be safe,” he said.
The stone wreaked havoc on the lives of smugglers, plotters, and dreamers as it traveled through Brazil and America.
But Miller, a former detective who briefly owned the stone and is one of the few people who survived fate’s dark twists, sees no reason to fear the emerald.
“I believe that greed is the only curse this stone has,” he said.
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