The story of the great diamond scam. Or. All brilliant - easy.

In winter 1872 American financier Asbury Harpending was in London, when he received a telegram: the American West discovered diamond deposit. Source of information was reliable - William Ralston, the owner of the Bank of California, however Harpending took it as a hoax, perhaps inspired by the recent discovery of vast diamond deposits in South Africa. However, by the early reports about the gold that was found in the United States, the West, too, all treated with skepticism, and it was true.


Harpending showed the telegram to a friend and colleague, Baron Rothschild (one of the richest men in the world) with the words, it's probably a joke. Baron, however, replied: "Do not be so sure. America is very high. She has already presented the world many surprises. Maybe there are others in reserve. " Harpending without delay by the first steamer returned to the States.

When he got to San Francisco, there prevailed excitement, reminiscent of the days of the gold rush the end of the 1840s. Diamond mine discovered two simple miners, Philip Arnold and John Slack. They do not disclose its location in Wyoming, and when a few months earlier were taken to a highly respected expert geologist, went the long way round, so that he did not remember the road. Once in place, the expert saw miners dig diamonds. Back in San Francisco, the expert pointed to several jewelers stones, one of which assessed the cost of 1, 5 million dollars.

Harpending and Ralston asked Arnold and Slack go with them to New York City to a jeweler Charles Tiffany confirmed the estimate. The miners did not immediately agree - they felt trapped: how can you be trusted this city slicker? What if Tiffany and financiers are going to steal their core right from under his nose? Ralston tried to dispel their fears by paying them 100 thousand dollars and put it in the bank 300 thousand in the event that the transaction takes place. They agreed.
A small group went to New York, where everyone had to get together in a mansion of Samuel L. Barlow. We have gathered the cream of the city aristocracy - General George Brinton McClellan, commander of the army of northerners in the Civil War, General Benjamin Butler, Horace Greeley, editor of the newspaper "New York Tribune" Harpending, Ralston and Tiffany. Only Slack and Arnold were absent - they went to see the town

. When Tiffany announced that the stones are real and worth a fortune, financiers hardly managed to cope with the excitement. They contacted by Rothschild and other magnates, to inform them of the diamond core and invited to participate in the investment. At the same time they told miners that wish to conduct another test: they insisted that the expert geologist, who choose themselves, went to Arnold and Slack in place to assess the capacity of the core. Those reluctantly agreed. They said that they do not care it's time to go back to San Francisco. Stones, which are examined Tiffany, they have left to preserve Harpending.
A few weeks later, the best expert in the country Luis Janine met with miners in San Francisco. Janine, finished skeptic, was determined to prove that nothing is worth living. With him went Harpending and several interested financiers. As is the case with the previous expert team led prospectors confusing way through numerous canyons, not allowing to navigate. Upon arrival, financiers watched in amazement as Janine rummaging everywhere, destroying ant hills, boulders and overturning finding emeralds, rubies, sapphires, and more often - diamonds. The study lasted eight days, and in the end Jeanine told investors that they were the owners of the richest deposits of precious stones in history. "I can vouch - he told them - that hundreds of workers and appropriate equipment diamond mining will bring up to a million dollars per month»

. Returning to San Francisco in a few days, Ralston, and other Harpending quickly established a corporation of private investors for 10 million dollars. The first thing they are, of course, decided to get rid of Arnold and Slack. This required them to conceal their excitement - they did not want to, so that they learn about the true cost of deposits. So they played the whole performance. "Who knows whether Jeanine rights - they spoke miners - lived might not be so rich as it seems." This caused only irritation. Financiers have tried to change tactics, warning of angry miners, that if they will want to have a share in the enterprise, the unscrupulous millionaires and investors, organized the corporation eventually oberut them. It is safer to get them 700 thousand - at that time an incredible amount - forget about greed. This argument seemed convincing miners, they agreed to take the money in exchange for signing a paper on the transfer of all rights to the land and passing financiers maps and plans.

News about fabulously rich deposit spread everywhere. Across Wyoming worked prospectors. Meanwhile Harpending and companies spend millions received from investors, purchasing equipment, hiring the best experts and furnished luxury offices in New York and San Francisco.
However, a few weeks later, having made the first trip to a place they have learned the bitter truth: neither could not find a single diamond or ruby. Everything was fake, and they - ruined. Harpending, unwittingly, involved the world's richest people in the loudest scam century.

Arnold and Slack, to inflate its major wealthy clients, not hired an engineer and not a dummy bribed Tiffany. All the experts were present, and they sincerely believe in the existence of core and value of the stones. What was the deception in the history, so it themselves Arnold and Slack. These two seem as simpletons, hillbillies, so naive, that anybody at the moment and it never occurred that they could be capable of such daring deception. The miners used the law "seem dumber than your client" - the first commandment deceivers

. Scam plan was very simple. In just a few months before to announce the "discovery", Arnold and Slack went to Europe, where he acquired precious stones about 12 thousand dollars (the money earned by them in their time on the gold mining). Then they bustles "mine" these stones, and was invited to the first expert who "found" the stones and brought them to San Francisco. Jewelers who have studied the stones, including of Tiffany, psychologically succumbed to the hype, raised around the findings and much overestimated their price. Then Ralston paid miners 100 thousand as insurance, and immediately after a trip to New York, they went to Amsterdam, where he bought bags of rough stones, and then returned to San Franiisko. They are the second time worked on mine, so now you can find more jewels.

The success of the scheme, however, were not these tricks, and the fact that Arnold and Slack brilliantly played their role. During a trip to New York, where they rotate in the community of millionaires and tycoons, they are very accurately portrayed village boobies, dressed in a too short and tight pants and jackets, and suspiciously glancing at everything they saw in the big city. No one would have believed that these unsophisticated provincials could fool the most experienced and cynical businessmen of his time. And when Harpending, Ralston Rothschild and even acknowledged the existence of veins, to anyone who would be doubted, had cast doubt on the mind of the most successful businessmen in the world.

As a result, Harpending reputation has been irrevocably destroyed, and Rothschild learned his lesson and will never become a victim of fraud. Slack had my share and disappeared, it could not be found. Arnold went home to Kentucky. In the end, the paper for the sale of rights to land were genuine and legitimate buyers hired the best consultants, and if you lived exhausted, it was not his problem. With the money Arnold turned his farm into a great economy and opened its own bank.

(From the book by Robert Green's "48 Laws of Power")