Private buyers, or rich sobs who don't mind where a precious object came from. I mean historically all great art and precious objects have been stolen at one time or another.

Well if it was so rare, who were they planning on selling it to? It would be a hot item that the police would be looking for.
What an enlightening comment.
Rare art, jewelry, etc., are stolen all the time and there is an entire black market waiting to buy. In fact, the greatest museum heist, which occurred in the 80s or earl 90s, has never been solved, and all 13 pieces(I think there were 13 pieces) are still missing. Do you really think they are sitting in the basements of the thieves that pulled the heist off?
Jack's not dead! Jack would never die without telling me, first!

There's a market somewhere for anything of great value, especially if it's the only one like it in the world, stolen or not. And what makes you think these guys purchased the surveillance equipment? These guys are criminals, they probably stole it along with the guns and other equipment.

your post makes absolutely no sense, at all. Don't they have boards for teenagers somewhere else on IMDB?
Jack's not dead! Jack would never die without telling me, first!

This message has been deleted.

It was NOT a ruby, it was a red diamond. The robbers even say "diamond", at the beginning of the movie. Red diamonds are extremely rare, and have only been mined in the Amazon, in Brazil.
The Moussaieff red diamond, 5k, currently owned by the De Beers family is worth 7 million.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moussaieff_Red_Diamond
another very famous red diamond
http://famousdiamonds.tripod.com/supremepurplestardiamond.html
The diamond in this movie was much larger than 5k.
What, just for once in your life can't you be serious?

Arguably $10m in, say, 1990, wiould be closer to $30 or $40m now?
..
Arrested Development 2009
http://www.arresteddevelopment2009.com
Spread the word!

Just proves it wasn't worth it.
4 guys in jail 10 years, means an average of 1 million a year four ways or 250k each. They passed up that much on the first robbery to get the gem.
I'm more wondering where they got the tech skills to operate the new computers and electronics. Pc's changed a lot in 10 years.

This message has been deleted.

They mention how much it's worth at the beginning of the movie: 10 million dollar.

I just saw this movie today and I thought the exact same thing.