(IDEX Online) - The GIA lab in Johannesburg has identified three cases of synthetic moissanite being submitted for grading with a fraudulent inscription.
It's a new development by unscrupulous dealers trying to pass off simulants as genuine diamonds.
The lab says most fakes are easily spotted, but in the first of three cases a colorless 1.02-ct round brilliant gem bore a GIA number corresponding to an E-color natural diamond of the same weight that had been graded in 2019. The inscription was not in a font used by the GIA.
The fraud was confirmed by subsequent spectroscopic and gemological analysis, according to the GIA's Quarterly Journal, Gems & Gemology.
After the GIS gave details of the first synthetic moissanite it found two further stones, also with fraudulent inscriptions.
Pic shows the stone and its fraudulent inscription (partly redacted)...