Rough diamonds worth millions of dollars have reportedly disappeared from Russia's supposedly impenetrable repository created by the Bolsheviks to store the tsar's jewels.
The state-owned Severalmaz company handed diamonds weighing a combined 150,000 carats — or 66 pounds — to the Gokhran repository for inventory purposes, according to respected business daily Kommersant.
Citing sources close to the investigation, the paper said the same weight in diamonds was returned - but four of the biggest stones were missing and had been replaced by multiple smaller ones.
The missing diamonds reportedly including a 23-carat stone.
They were insured for a combined $500,000. That means their real market value was several million dollars, Sergei Goryainov of Rough & Polished, a diamond market analysis company, told NBC News on Thursday.