Recovering the funds (Spoiler)

Finch mentions that he could have gotten 5% for recovering the diamonds. He also has plenty of evidence that Laura Quinn and Mr. Hobbs were the culprits. That is proven within a few years, when Laura becomes a public philanthropist. So why doesn't Finch come up with a method to recover the funds and get his five million pounds ($300M in 2011 dollars)?

In the heat of the crisis, Lon Di pretends that nothing happened to the diamonds, protecting their reputation. But too many people know - workmen, cops, employees - and surely the KGB, protecting Russian interests, could find out? The insurance syndicate, and Sinclair's heirs, are out 100 million pounds ($6B 2011USD). That leaves a big trail - stocks are sold, money moves, records accumulate. Surely the syndicate has strong incentives to continue to track down the culprits and force them to return the money. Quinn would have a difficult time explaining to Inland Revenue why she had so much money to give away and hadn't paid taxes on it.

Perhaps the syndicate constructs a plausible story that makes Quinn and Hobbs appear to be criminals and liars. Perhaps they (or the KGB, or organized crime) have her kidnapped in Africa during one of those photo-op appearances. There are just too many powerful organizations that would not leave Laura Quinn in peace to give away stolen money for 40 years.

In real life, some people grab a lot of money in unsavory ways, telling themselves that they will give it back as charity and that justifies the way it was gotten. It hardly ever works out that way. The promotion of that Hollywood fantasy just maintains the illusion that theft is OK if some of it goes to charity. So while this is just a silly bit of Hollywood fluff, the message is troubling.