Made up reports for broadcasting by detective misappropriated by jewel thieves (8)
I believe the answer is:
diamonds
'misappropriated by jewel thieves' is the definition.
Although both the answer and definition are plural nouns, I can't see how one could define the other.
'made up reports for broadcasting by detective' is the wordplay.
'made up reports for' becomes 'diam' (I am not sure about this - if you are sure you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'broadcasting' becomes 'on'.
'by' is a charade indicator (letters next to each other).
'detective' becomes 'ds' (detective sergeant).
'diam'+'on'+'ds'='DIAMONDS'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for diamonds that I've seen before include "cutters" , "Maids don these stones" , "Maids don these gems" , "Very hard, very expensive gems" , "Precious stones from hard brilliant mineral" .)