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Airdate: May 9th, 2008 A big October find at Crater of Diamonds State Park is now part of a big controversy. The diamond digger in question is either a fraud or one of the luckiest visitors in the park's history. As Seven-On-Your-Side's Jason Pederson reports…one man's trip to Arkansas may lead to a soiled reputation. ### The big diamond was big news. A nearly four-carat brown diamond found by a Wisconsin man visiting Crater of Diamonds State Park in Murfreesboro. Eric Blake, his fiancee and her two daughters found about three dozen diamonds in only a week of digging. (Tom Stolarz/Crater of Diamonds State Park) "I would qualify that as extremely lucky. In fact to the point of saying that is highly unlikely. " As soon as Blake left, park regulars went directly to the area of the reported finds. (Denis Tyrell/Diamond hunter) "I did not find any diamonds in that dirt." Also soon after Blake left, many of his discoveries could be found for sale on his web site...advertised as genuine Arkansas diamonds. (Mike Howard/Arkansas Geological Survey) "Many people go there. Few people find stones. And so there is a demand by people who have visited the park to purchase stones by those people who are lucky enough to find them. And that drives the price up. And it is strictly a tourist-driven price range." Mike Howard is a geologist and Arkansas' chief expert on mineralogy. Howard says the laws of supply and demand make Arkansas diamonds much more valuable than similar diamonds found elsewhere in the world. (Howard) "There are other places that are known that contain diamonds with these kinds of forms...yes." One of those places is the Panna mines in India. Soon after Blake's web site started selling his Arkansas discoveries, a receipt turned up out of Belgium. It is a receipt for diamonds sent to Eric Blake dated October 9th. Included on the receipt...a diamond the size of his big find. Also…there is a photo of that big diamond that accompanies the receipt. When compared to the diamond Blake would claim to find two weeks later in Arkansas…the similarities are striking. That evidence and more has been gathered by the operator of the website www.fakeminerals.com. (Justin Zzyzx/www.fakeminerals.com) "It is without a doubt, 100 percent positive that the diamonds Eric Blake had for sale on his web site were not from the Crater of Diamonds State Park in Arkansas. They were clearly Indian in origin." Blake insists his Arkansas finds are authentic but so far he has failed to send them to a geologist for examination. He did take his web site down right after the fakeminerals.com article was posted. Stolarz, the park superintendent, says if Blake did it he is not the first to smuggle diamonds into the park. (Stolarz) "It's generally someone with a family group that wants to ensure that a child or a wife or a spouse…to ensure that they find a diamond in case they strike out, you know, on their hunt." (Zzyzx) "It definitely was a creative idea and I doubt that most people sit around at night thinking of how they can possibly scam the Crater of Diamonds State Park." (Tyrell) "If somebody came here and was that lucky or that fortunate to have dug the holes that he dug and found as many diamonds as he dug…I would still be there today pursuing that area and extracting those diamonds out of there if it was for real." Eric Blake refused to answer any of our questions. Pike county prosecutor Tom Cooper is considering possible charges against Blake. He may have an announcement next week.
It is hard work, and while luck plays a part , that guy was way too lucky!! That certainly isn't the first time for fraud: I once watched a guy (part of a large group) turn in an African diamond, saying he had just found it in the Crater. I was a novice hunter at the time, but even I recognized that the diamond was not of local origin. The park official checked it in as a find, but I was later told that no one wanted to make a scene by calling the guy's hand.
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