Transport of diamonds into the EU: worrying website

[Paul-Antwerp]

Hello all,

The other day, I was reading this thread, and became curious after reading the following line in one of the last posts:

"I didn't really consider James Allen untill I stumbled upon truthaboutdiamonds.com "

Being kind of curious, I checked out truthaboutdiamonds.com again, and was surprised by a pop-up on the homepage, leading me to the following article. The article describes a 'legal' way for Europeans to import diamonds from the US into the European Union, without paying any customs taxes and/or VAT.

Having read this, I find it my duty to warn everybody about this. The practice described in the article is absolutely not legal, so do not let a any website convince you that it is. Importing diamonds into the European Union, whether from the US or from Switzerland makes no difference. You need to declare it when entering the country, and taxes and VAT are due.

The existence of this article, specifically directed at UK-customers, is actually a danger for consumers going this route. You can be sure that the UK VAT-officials at some time are going to find out about this article, and will start pointing their attention to travelers coming back from a one-day-trip to Geneva.

Unfortunately, we cannot do anything about bad advice on other websites, but the owner of this website happens to have posted for a short period on PS. If he happens to read this, I invite him to react here but also ask him to retract the article.

Live long,

 

[oser21]

It happened to one of my clients returning from Antwerp to Geneva.
He declared the ring at customs when leaving Brussels, thus receiving the needed custom’s stamp.
Upon entering Geneva airport, he was taken aside by customs when he did not declare the diamond as an import good.
He got fined I believe three times the local duties.

 

[iraweissman]

Paul,

Thank you for providing that poke in my side needed to get me to do what I''ve been meaning to do for a few weeks now. Yes, you are 100% right that this method is not legal. I realized my error a few weeks after posting that article, but have been so busy with other things that I never got around to taking it down and disabling the pop-up (which, btw, is only activated for readers coming from outside the US). Your post makes it clear that I can''t wait any longer. I fully admit that it was negligent of me to leave it up for even a moment once I realized it was not legal.

Hopefully by the time you see this response, the article will have been removed.

Thank you,
Ira

 

[Todd Gray]

Date: 10/30/2009 7:00:05 AM
Author: Rob UK
It happened to one of my clients returning from Antwerp to Geneva.

He declared the ring at customs when leaving Brussels, thus receiving the needed custom’s stamp.

Upon entering Geneva airport, he was taken aside by customs when he did not declare the diamond as an import good.

He got fined I believe three times the local duties.

Yea, that was worth it

OUCH!

 

[Paul-Antwerp]

Thank you, Ira, for taking that down.

I hope that nobody followed your imprudent advice. I apologize for sounding somewhat old-fashioned, but I do advise you to better inform yourself next time.

Live long,