Planet Money buys a mystery diamond

Planet Money

NPR

Business, News

4.6 • 29.8K Ratings

🗓️ 26 March 2025

⏱️ 34 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The deal seemed too good to be true. There's a website that's been selling top quality diamonds at bizarrely low prices. Prices we couldn't find at any retail outlet. Prices so low, we could buy a diamond on a public radio budget. So we did. What we got in the mail was a tiny ziploc bag containing a scintillating mystery.

On today's show: the Planet Money Diamond (or whatever this sparkly rock turns out to be). We get it analyzed by the experts at the Gemological Institute of America. We investigate where it came from. And, we dive into the economics of glittery stones. Was this a new kind of internet scam? Some supply chain anomaly? Or is something just really weird going on in the world of diamonds?

This episode was produced by James Sneed. It was edited by Keith Romer with help from Jess Jiang, fact-checked by Emma Peaslee, and engineered by Kwesi Lee. Alex Goldmark is our executive producer.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This message comes from CNN. Terms of Service with Claire Duffy explores AI and other powerful new technologies.
0:07.8	Learn how to experiment with these tools without getting played by them. Listen to CNN's Terms of Service with Claire Duffy.
0:15.6	This is Planet Money from NPR.
0:27.4	A little while back, I bought something online that, frankly, seemed too good to be true.
0:33.1	And after seeing this thing with my own eyes, I knew I had to share it with somebody.
0:36.0	My planet money colleague, Sarah Gonzalez.
0:39.7	It's like a white envelope.
0:42.2	Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
0:47.8	I had mailed this thing to her as a kind of proposal to, you know, co-host this episode about this very strange economic mystery.
0:55.2	And then more bubble wrap.
0:57.0	This package had come from the Chinese e-commerce website Alibaba.
1:01.5	Alibaba is the kind of place where you can buy like two dozen lawnmowers straight from the factory.
1:07.8	You got to pop the bubbles.
1:09.3	But what I had bought is a lot smaller.
1:12.4	Oh, so satisfying.
1:14.0	And a lot shinier.
1:17.5	Jeff, what is this?
1:21.4	Is it a fake diamond or a real diamond?
1:25.3	Sarah.
1:26.3	This is not a real diamond.
1:27.9	According to the website that I bought it off of, that is a real diamond.
1:33.8	What?
	...

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