IN THE hushed, darkened atmosphere of his lab, several storeys above New York’s Fifth Avenue, Kenneth Scarratt peered down a microscope at a brilliant blue sapphire. At first glance, the 15-carat stone might fetch thousands of dollars. But something was not quite right: the blue colour was clustered in a billowy cloud in the middle of the stone while the outer edges were crystal clear. Scarratt knew what it meant. Only humans – not nature – could have produced such an effect.
Over the next few months, in the early part of 2003, similar stones trickled into the lab for evaluation. Scarratt,…
