This jewel heist could be a Pink Panther case.
According to court documents, a Florida psychic allegedly convinced a lovelorn soul to steal $90 million in jewelry from their affluent employer, including a beautiful 13.15-carat pink diamond.
A complaint asserts that the stolen jewels eventually entangled an unwitting Manhattan diamond trader.
The most valuable of the 17 stolen gems was the $35 million “Fancy Vivid Pink Diamond,” which was scheduled to be auctioned by Christie’s on December 6 until the FBI intervened and halted the sale.
According to officials, the valuable stones were stolen from a safe in Doha, Qatar, in August and mailed to spiritual counselor John Lee in Florida and New Jersey.
According to his profile, Lee, 56, advertised his psychic skills under the name 1111Giovanni1111 on the website Purple Garden, promising prospective clients that 1,111 angels would “help guide me to advise you.”
According to court filings from Florida, in June 2022, Lee promised to “cleanse” the personal jewels of a longtime client who worked for a wealthy man in Qatar.
The 13.15 carat pink diamond is said to have been taken from its affluent Qatari owner by an employee who was tricked by a Florida psychic.
Christies
The desperate individual, identified as “Victim 1,” mailed their own jewelry to Lee, who eventually returned it. According to the legal document, since the cleanse did not eliminate Victim 1’s “negative feelings,” Lee advised extending the purification to the boss’s jewelry.
So, according to investigators, Victim 1 entered their employer’s safe four times and was captured on film leaving with loaded pockets before sending the stolen property to Lee at addresses in Davenport, Florida, and Paramus, New Jersey.
A month later, Lee agreed to return the valuable stones during a meeting in Cannes, France, but he never showed up and subsequently lied to the victim.
According to court documents, he wrote, “Please stop, I have no idea what you are talking about, and I don’t think you need a psychic, you need a psychiatrist.”
At that time, Victim 1 confessed to their supervisor, who is not mentioned in court documents.
Lee was arrested in New Jersey on December 12 on accusations of wire and mail fraud; if convicted, he faces 20 years in prison for each count.
Meanwhile, according to a Manhattan Supreme Court case, Diamond District jeweler Zaki Salame was working with a friend who owned two pink diamonds and wanted Salame to help shape and sell them, including the 13.15-carat stone.
Salame believed the pink gems belonged to Long Branch, NJ jeweler Solomon Moyal, and alleges that Brooklyn resident Simon Alfaks persuaded him to purchase a 1/8 stake in a 13.15-carat diamond for $2.54 million.
Salame was the one who suggested auctioning the pink diamond at Christie’s, and he was the one who lost millions when the FBI withdrew the gem prior to the sale, according to the court documents he filed against Moyal and Alfaks.
According to Salame’s lawsuit, the two defendants have refused to refund his $3.8 million payment, a portion of which was in the form of diamonds given as collateral.
Lee’s court date in Florida is later this month.
»Pink diamond withdrawn from Christie’s auction as part of psychic’s plot«