It’s the tale of a daring outback heist full of colourful characters, dirty deals and millions of dollars of pink diamonds.
But far from being like a Mission: Impossible-style raid, the story of the Argyle mine theft was a four-year long con that started when affable security officer Barry Crimmins stumbled across an opportunity too great to ignore.
During his shifts at the Argyle diamond mine in WA’s remote Kimberley region, Crimmins realised he could pick up uncut diamonds from the cutting room floor and pocket them.
“He would come out swinging his bags straight out of security and no one would dream of stopping Barry,”
Argyle investigator Richard Corfield told the ABC podcast Expanse: Pink Diamond Heist, in which the story is fully exposed for the first time.
With startling simplicity Crimmins then hid the diamonds in shampoo bottles or toothpaste tubes and flew to Perth with the loot.
A SIMPLE THEFT
Over the years his haul of stolen gems included some incredibly rare and valuable pink diamonds, which are only found at the Argyle diamond mine.
“Estimates put the theft at around $50 million but the story was much bigger than I anticipated,” Sinead Mangan, the podcast’s host and researcher, tells Woman’s Day.
“The end result was possibly the biggest jewellery heist in the world and sources gave me figures of up to $200 million.”
Of course Crimmins wasn’t operating alone.
He needed someone inside the diamond trade to help him clean and cut the precious gems and Lindsay Roddan, a former horse trainer, was just that man.
Again, the process was simple.
Once Crimmins handed Roddan the diamonds, he used a team of airline employees, who concealed them in tubs of face cream to smuggle out of the country to big overseas diamond players.
Incredibly the thefts, which began in 1988, could have potentially been stopped much earlier.
Police received tips about unpolished pink diamonds surfacing in Antwerp, which shouldn’t have been possible as Argyle polished all its diamonds in Australia.
But due to alleged police corruption this was never fully investigated and it was only when Crimmins’ ex-wife Lynette went to the police in 1993 that the whole incredible story was blown wide open.
Lynette had got wind of the scheme early on when she found her husband washing diamonds in their bathroom sink.
Wooed by the idea of riches beyond her wildest dreams, she became heavily involved in the scheme and eventually left Cummins for Roddan.
However, after an argument, Lynette went to the police and told them everything.
“Lynette is an extraordinary woman but the diamond heist impacted her life to this day,” says Sinead.
“What happened is still unresolved for her.’
The Crimminses pleaded guilty to conspiring to steal Argyle diamonds.
Lynette escaped jail while Roddan, who maintained he was innocent, was sentenced to six years behind bars in 1996.
It was reduced to three years for time already spent in custody. He died in 2007.
SMALL FORTUNE
After the court case, the story of one of the biggest diamond heists in history was pretty much forgotten until Sinead first heard about it 20 years ago as a journalism cadet.
Then, last year, a Perth jeweller friend, Rohan Milne, told Sinead how some of the stolen gems, recovered by the Argyle mine, had gone up for auction and he’d bought them.
“I love a good story so I was interested,” Rohan tells Woman’s Day.
“The diamonds have their own uniqueness but it’s the who and why behind them that makes them.”
There were no pinks in the bundle of 20 diamonds that Rohan bought but it led Sinead to begin investigating and perhaps discover where those precious pink diamonds turned up.
However, it appears the mystery of all those missing pinks may stay forever hidden.
“They were sent straight to Europe because they were so valuable and they’re still out there somewhere,” says Sinead.
Wherever they are, they’re worth a small fortune.
“One pink stone stolen was estimated to be $3.8 million and in today’s money that would be three or four times that amount,” says Rohan.
For him though, the true value is all in the telling of a ripper West Australian story.
“We’ve had multiple offers for single stones from the collection but we’re keeping them on display in our new studio and I have no other plans for them right now,” he says.
