From mid-January - mid-February there are approximately 65,000 outside visitors to Tucson for a show. Why aren't visitors suspect?
My first thought, and I have been to Tucson twice, is, “with these types, who knows”, but because I know who goes there, I’d tend to say, no.
These shows are a traveling market. A bazaar. Crimes on the market are against property, not against humans.
The show was way smaller this year, according to vendors. From my impression of very old shows, it was 1/2 US gem vendors, a few, from Europe, many based in Thailand (of all ethnic groups) and lots of vendors from India, Sri Lanka, such places. The goal of vendors is to come, unload, get money, establish some contacts, and leave for the next show.
The locals in Tucson were welcoming, helpful, blissfully unaware of the world geography and not minding clusters of different people in a downtown center. But if anyone, especially a non-local, would be driving around Catalina Foothills, I’d seriously doubt it will pass unnoticed.
Vendors were always concerned with being mugged themselves, btw. It is true that all vendors use cryptocurrency and that the market is highly specific. But, let us imagine, a group of gems and jewelry thieves arrived in Tucson and got upset with the low return. Would they switch to abducting people for ransom or travel to the next show to steal rough, minerals or stones?
Consider this: crimes against property and crimes against humans have very different charges. The attitude to the criminals is different.
Could someone attending the show during those days hear about the abduction, connect to home and start blackmailing the family via TMZ? I think vendors are smarter. If they didn’t make enough money, they are probably booking stands at other shows now, bypassing highly criminalized case.
Can some weirdo helping at the show do it? Yes, but he still has to know the area.
The only plausible scenario would be similar to Wilkie Collins’ “the Moonstone”. Nancy Guthrie lived in Australia. Maybe it was the beginning of the Argyle diamonds boom (it started later but her husband was a mining engineer so he could get some samples) so she had brought some… etc, etc. But I doubt that an old lady would keep such valuables at home to start with.