Matt S. writes:

As I am considerably well versed in the field of diamonds (after my recent gemological purchase that now graces the left digit of my special lady friend), and a published rectal scientist, I think that I can answer Joe C.'s question with reasonable accuracy:

Mr. C, a fine question. As you are a genius of all things theoretical in the world of poop/GI phenomenon, (see his dissertation here) I would not expect you to understand this.

Allow me to shed some light. I must admit, I wondered how the authorities nabbed this culprit as well. To contradict the news article, I am not aware of any scanning devices that will detect the highly organized, carbon crystal lattice composing a diamond while buried deep within the folds of fatty tissue, smooth muscle and feces contained in the belly region of H. Sapien. I'm also pretty sure that a dog can't sniff out a diamond (especially under aforementioned circumstances). So, the authorities must have had a hunch, or a breakthrough of some kind. For the true answer we must once again, turn to science.

Given that the average diamond is about 1 carat, though ladies prefer them much larger (Joe -- this should ring a bell), we will assume that this gentleman wanted to smuggle some diamonds that were worth his while. So, if he smuggled 1,304 diamonds (as indicated in the article) between 1 and 2 carats, and 1 carat = 200 mg, then we are talking an average of about 400 grams of diamonds. Now, these were uncut (Joe -- this too may ring a bell), raw diamonds, so they must be larger to be able to be whittled down to the proper shape. So, add 30% for a total of 520 grams. Next, we convert to kg, and then to lbs, and we arrive at about 1.2 lbs of diamonds.

Next, the GI space that this 1.2 pound brick of diamonds occupies must be deduced. If the size of a 1 carat diamond is about 6.5 mm and a 2 carat diamond is about 8.1 mm then using an average size and accounting for the uncut nature of the stone we can apply the formula for volume LxWxH and find that the average stone would occupy about 400 mm3 of space. Thus 1,304 diamonds would occupy about 521,600 mm3 of space. Converting to inches and putting this in perspective, we are talking about a 27 inch cube.

Now, let's put a monetary value on all of this: Again, using averages, and given a 1 carat, round brilliant cut, non-GIA certified stone, F through H color rating, VVS2 through SI-1 would be worth about $5,000 to 7,000 USD. And a 2 carat stone, same constraints, would be valued between $10,000 to 15,000 USD, then the approximate value in USD is about $ 11,750,000.00

In conclusion, authorities caught this man with a 1.2 pound, 27 inch cube, valued at 12 million bucks crammed up his rear end. Now, I'm not sure how it got in there (and that's a completely different hypothesis) but I'll bet it was just screaming to come out. Especially after the laxative like effect that airline food has on the human digestive tract.