The fraudulent appraisal report of this 8.40-kilo rough stone, crafted by Miguel Zenetos, defines his gemological accreditation as “Director GIA Graduated Gemologist - USA.” The correct title would be “GIA Graduate Gemologist." In addition, Zenetos copied and pasted the number of the GIA identification report (see below) into his own document.
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Bergman commented: “Opaque means that no light can pass through the gemstone. Opaque ruby has virtually no value as a gemstone. Yet Zenetos appraised this big, ugly 252-kilogram lump of rough stone at more than US$3,000 per carat or US$15,000 per gram.”
By exposing Zenetos' absurd appraisals on LinkedIn, Facebook, and in magazine and newspaper articles, Bergman aimed to notify the public of the nature and source of the fraud so that, hopefully, readers will not fall victim to these gemstone appraisal scams.
“When appraisal values are inflated to 100,000 times real market value, innocent people have been enticed to invest in these uncut gemstones. It would be impossible to recover their investment if they decide to sell these specimens resulting in substantial financial loss.” Bergman stated.
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