This was when things started to go badly wrong for the reputation of the Royal Thai Police and for Thai-Saudi relations.
The Saudis quickly discovered that most of the returned gems were fake – the real jewels had been replaced by paste copies and the blue diamond was missing.
Clearly mistrustful of the Thai police, the Saudis dispatched Mohammad al-Ruwaili, a businessman with close ties to the Saudi royals, to Bangkok to unravel the case.
In February 1990, the curse claimed its first lives. The Saudi consul was shot dead in Bangkok, and minutes later two other Saudi embassy staff were also assassinated in a second attack. The same month, Ruwaili vanished, never to be seen again. He, too, is presumed to have been murdered. All four killings remain unsolved.