are Canadian diamonds really Canadian?

[g7adrian]

I found a recent negative article in USA Today http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1272/is_2706_132/ai_114740983 about the supply of diamonds that claims among other things that De Beers [...] can fly in a diamond from Africa, and, within a day, legally arrange for it to be given papers identifying it as Canadian. This makes me wonder if people who buy Canadian diamonds as a guarrantee do be conflict free are in fact being tricked. Do you believe the author is exaggerating, or there is some grain of truth in what he is saying? It seems Canadian mining is really betting of the validity of Canadian certification, and would be hurt if the certificate looses its trustworthiness.

 

[Neil Beaty]

g7adrian,

That's an interesting article, as is the movie made by the same writer.

Assuring a diamond to be free of human rights abuses is of great interest to all reputable dealers as well as to the consuming public. The law passed in 2003 involves what is called the Kimberly Process. This basically requires all diamond merchants who are selling at wholesale to accompany the sale with a certification statement that, to the best of their knowledge, this stone is from sources that are free of human rights violations. The idea is that if this happens at every level from the miner to the retailer with everyone being required to make the same certification to their buyer, it will be difficult to sell questionable diamonds. There are 43 signatories on it including all of the countries in Europe, North America, and the producing countries of 98% of the diamonds in the world. It applies to all international trades of diamonds into or out of the signing countries. There is a full explanation at:

http://www.kimberleyprocess.com:8080/site/

The Kimberly process is not a foolproof system. Some argue that it isn’t even particularly helpful. It is certainly possible to cheat and, by their nature, they people who do dastardly deeds in Africa are exactly the type who would be inclined to cheat. I’m not really prepared to defend it, and it isn’t what you asked about. I bring it up because it is the root of the article in question.

The article claims that the customs agents in Switzerland will easily and legally certify something as a product of Canada in opposition to the facts. They are talking about the KP certification. Frankly, even this seems unlikely but, in any case, it’s irrelevant. The Canadians, not the Swiss, issue the certification that accompanies genuine Canadian diamonds! Counterfeiting such a document would be illegal in Canada and either manufacturing or importing such a thing would be illegal in any country that honors Canadian rights, which includes Switzerland, UK, US, and pretty much everyone else. I suppose that it is theoretically possible for someone to smuggle a stone into the Canadian system and get it certified but this would be extremely difficult to do and I’ve not heard of a single case where anyone has been caught trying to do this. I’m confident that the Canadian authorities would be very concerned about such a crime if anyone knows of an unprosecuted instance.

I think you can be confident that a stone accompanied by Canadian government report is, in fact, a product of Canada.

Neil Beaty, GG
www.gemlab.us

 

[CaptAubrey]

this particular author's obsessive paranoia about de beers is fairly well established. there is some truth to what she has in that article (and the book it's based on), but it's impossible to separate fact from fiction. the stuff she writes is riddled with sloppy research and inaccuracies, some of them downright laughable. the tales about diamonds "tumbling out of the rock" are just that. diamonds simply don't occur that way in kimberlite. then she talks about "seeing" hundreds of diamonds by looking down at a stream bed. i know exploration geologists who would laugh out loud at that idea. what she saw was probably nothing but quartz pebbles. separating rough diamonds from the other minerals in an alluvial deposit is not something any competent geologist would ever attempt on sight alone. and her figures on the supposed ore grades around the world are wildly off the mark.




as for canadian certification, the canadian government takes it very seriously. i cannot imagine them letting de beers (or anyone else) circumvent it in such a fashion. the author would of course accuse the government of complicity with de beers, but there's nothing to back up such an idea. de beers in fact has had a very rough time of it in canada recently. they're about to open a diamond mine but getting there has required years of battles with local and federal regulators--not exactly a tale of complicity.

 

[DiamondExpert]

There's also this nasty bit of business by the Eastern European Mafia...
http://www.diamonds.net/news/newsitem.asp?num=9956&type=all&topic=all

 

[Iceman]

Dont believe all you read in the newspapers.