I’ve mentioned many times on this site that I used to be a jeweler. Well, before I started out on my own in the jewelry trade I worked for a Russian Armenian man. He was very nice, very good looking, and perhaps luckily for me – very disorganized! I was managing his business within my first 6 months of working for him.
I worked for him for about 5 years before I had gained enough skills, and I suppose the courage, to start out on my own. One thing that I learned while I was working with him was that he was connected with some very bad people. I didn’t suspect that he was doing anything wrong or illegal, but rumors flew around and I soon found out that some of the people that visited daily,that I knew fairly well, were Russian Mafia.
My old boss always seemed to have a lot of money, and spent it extravagantly. His father was also in the trade and had a successful business so I and many others assumed that the money was coming from his father. Now I suspect otherwise and it breaks my heart.
I haven’t seen my old boss for some time but I know he has all kinds of legal troubles and had to hire a criminal defense attorney because he was arrested when he went through the border recently. Apparently the people he was with had arrest warrants out for them and when the car was stopped at the border a number of smuggled items were found in the car. Also found in the car was a large amount of jewelry and loose gem stones. The only passenger in the car that had any jewelry connections was my former boss.
He’s denied having anything to do with the jewels found in the car, but I guess because he happened to be with wanted men and because other smuggled items were found in the car it’s been assumed that he had smuggled the jewels into the country. I don’t know if there are charges that the jewelry is stolen or anything but I presume that there are.
It broke my heart when I heard this news. I’d always been very close to my old boss. It always felt like he was my brother the way we looked out for each other.
I’m still shocked by the news, and I’m hoping that it isn’t true. I certainly hope that his criminal defense lawyer is one of the best. This happened a few months ago, and I know that he’s not in jail so I’m assuming that his lawyer has been doing a good job of at least keeping him out of jail. If I get any more news as to whats happened to my old boss I’ll update this post.