Before anything else, let’s get one thing straight: we’re not talking about a teeny-tiny pearl here — this one weighs 81.5 pounds and has an estimated value of USD130 million.
An unbelievalbly huge clam pearl was shipped out of the Philippines without the permission of the National Museum (NM) in what could be the “the biggest case of cultural-property smuggling in the country.”
The pearl was reportedly “owned” by a Filipino missionary Gloria Huetter, who refused to disclose the exact location where the treasure was found. She reportedly planned to sell the pearl for the benefit of poor Filipinos.
Huetter’s pearl is much bigger than the pearl found by a fisherman in Palawan last year. It could actually be the biggest one in the world.
Read: Palawan fisherman surrenders 34kg pearl he’s been keeping as a lucky charm
According to a report by the WNEP news station, Huetter was able to transport the pearl to the United States via Hong Kong with the help of her American friend Charlton Hollenbach.
“It’s almost impossible to pull off what we did. First of all, they are national treasures. You should go through the National Museum of the Philippines at first to get them certified. By doing that, they automatically become government property. To get this into the United States, I think we’re probably the first ones for this size to pull off what we did,” said Hollenback in the WNEP report.
Naturally, the National Museum was fuming over the incident.
NM director Jeremy Barns said that the US TV report was “was a direct admission of illegal trafficking of Philippine patrimony.”
“We have laws, and we have agreements, and this is yet another instance where we will bring the weight of international understandings to bear,” Barns said in a report by Edgar Allan M. Sembrano in the Philippine Daily Inquirer.
Barns said that the pearl could’ve been found in Palawan or the Sulu Sea.
Barns has arranged a special meeting with the United States Embassy in Manila. The Federal Bureau of Investigations is expected to get involved.
