No To Blood Diamonds

Published on 18/07/11

Could your new diamond engagement ring be supporting Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe?
Illicit Zimbabwean diamonds worth $300 million dollars are being sold into India’s vast trading system. The diamonds from Zimbabwe’s Marange diamond field have been illegally smuggled to traders in Surat, on the West Coast of India. Fake provenances of these “blood” diamonds mean they could be on sale anywhere, including in engagement rings in Europe and America. Traders of these illegal diamonds are hiding behind a legal loop hole created last year.
A trained eye can tell the cut, clarity, carat and color of a diamond quickly, but it is much harder to know where it was mined. Diamonds are a useful covert currency since they are easily portable and of high value and they often mined in places run by dictators and despots. As a result there is a business in faking a “blood” diamond’s provenance to pretend it was mined elsewhere and hence be deemed acceptable by the international community.