Word: khoja
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...Though the DSI insists there's no proof that the murders and kidnapping are connected to the theft, the former Saudi chargé d'affaires, Mohammed Khoja, was adamant, telling the Bangkok Post in 1995 that the murder case and heist were linked. Despite the deaths, the Thai police tried to return the gems that weren't yet sold by Kriangkrai in an official visit to Saudi Arabia, hoping it would end the scandal. It didn't take long, however, for Saudi Arabia to claim that most of the returned goods were imitation baubles. To add insult to injury...
...Under pressure from Saudi Arabia, Thailand continued to investigate the case, though maybe not in the way Saudi Arabia had hoped. In 1994, a Thai jeweler, whom Khoja believed was behind the imitation jewels, was kidnapped, and then his wife and 14-year-old son were killed. At the time, the Thai police said the two died in a car crash, but Khoja was not convinced. The Washington Post quoted him as saying, "The forensic commander thinks we're stupid. This was not an accident." (See the top 10 news stories...
...Chalor remains in prison, where he has put together a band and recorded a Thai cover of Elvis Presley's "Jailhouse Rock." Chalor has maintained his innocence, telling the Times of London, "Not all people in jail are guilty." It's no wonder that after all the deaths, Khoja said there was a hex on the blue diamond and that anyone who illegally handled the mysterious stone would be cursed - something many Thais still believe...
...losing out to their business rivals. When Roshan, a cellular-phone company jointly owned by the Geneva-based Aga Khan Development Network, Monaco Telecom and MCT Corp. of the U.S., began building a network in Afghanistan in 2002, transmission equipment languished in customs for months, says Roshan CEO Karim Khoja, because the company refused to pay bribes. Leases on prime land were also lost, and bureaucrats demanded free airtime and SIM cards, says Khoja...
...Khoja adds that it's certainly possible to operate a clean business and succeed in Afghanistan. Roshan is the largest carrier in the country. It has a million customers, a market share of about 60% and generated revenues of $100 million in its 2005 fiscal year. But to get there, Roshan had to make plenty of adjustments. Afghanistan has no functioning mail system or credit-card services, so billing methods prevalent in the West couldn't be used. Instead, customers get airtime by purchasing prepaid calling cards from roughly 4,000 vendors who are Roshan franchisees. In Kabul, the vendors...