

A theft case in Thailand got weirdly intimate last week when doctors were faced with the unfortunate task of recovering a 10 million baht (1.7 million RMB) diamond from a Chinese tourist’s intestines by pulling it out from where the sun don’t shine.

The unidentified woman and her Chinese accomplice were arrested on their way out of Thailand at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport on Thursday after being accused of stealing the six-carat diamond from a jewelry fair just outside of the capitol.

The vendor claims that the two earlier that day switched out the real gemstone with a fake one while inspecting it. They were caught at the airport based on surveillance footage captured at the scene.

The diamond, however, was nowhere to be found—and they probably would’ve gotten away with it if it weren’t for those meddling doctors and their damn pliers.

Details of the extraction method in this Associated Press report are somewhat vague, but you get the idea.

The suspects initially denied involvement, but X-rays showed a diamond-like object in the woman’s intestine, and police said she then confessed. Police Col. Mana Tienmaungpak said Sunday that authorities got to the bottom of the theft when a doctor wielding a colonoscope and the medical equivalent of pliers pulled the gemstone from the large intestine of the woman alleged to have filched it, after nature and laxatives failed to get it out.

The owner of the stone managed to identify it after it was taken out and (hopefully) thoroughly cleaned off.

While a rare instance, this isn’t exactly the first case of its kind. In an even more painful-sounding case from 2013, Korean officials arrested nine Taiwanese nationals attempting to smuggle 24 pieces of gold in their rectum while passing through the airport. Each person was reportedly managing to hold 5.5kg of metal up there at a time.



CHINA RESTAURANT WEEK: Enjoy more than 400 top restaurants in cities across China from Sept 3-13!

