gemologist

The details you might have read about him — that he chain-smoked Virginia Slims, holding them between his thumb and forefinger; that he drank tall, fruity cocktails with paper umbrellas until he was looped; that he was an amateur orchid raiser and gemologist — are all true.

From there, the stones were forwarded to Tiffany & Company in New York, where its chief gemologist at the time, George F. Kunz, declared them to be fine blue sapphires and dispatched a $3,750 check to Mr. Hoover.

Mr. Kunz “acquired the rough gemstone from a mine in California and cut the stone in his studio,” Victoria Reynolds, Tiffany’s chief gemologist since 2020, wrote in an email.

Lulu Lakatos, 60, posed as a gemologist who examined the stones from Boodles in central London on behalf of a Russian investor in March 2016.

Lulu Lakatos, 60, allegedly posed as a gemologist who examined the stones from Boodles in central London.