Triad and S. African Pilots In Cahoots to Smuggle Diamonds

South African charter pilots are allegedly fuelling trade in conflict diamonds by smuggling them in from war-torn African countries with the financing of a Chinese Triad group which uses them to launder money from its other illegal activities.

The operation is said to be a low-risk means of laundering money since pilots can bring the diamonds into South Africa with relative ease. The pilots receive up to $20,000 for each delivery, depending on the value of the diamonds.

The Triad gives the pilots up to $100,000 to buy parcels of diamonds, and most of the stones are allegedly smuggled into South Africa via Lanseria airport.

Once in the country, the gems are passed into small licensed mining operations and essentially laundered by combining them with legitimate diamonds

To further mask the diamonds’ origin, they are semi polished to make them similar to South African semi-processed stones. From there, they are then legally sold on the international diamond market.

The operations are difficult to prevent since South African law enforcement agencies, like their counterparts around the world, have difficulties penetrating the Triads, the Chinese crime organizations, due to the closed environment in which they operate.

Under the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme, the purchase of rough diamonds is to be accompanied by a certificate stating their country of origin.

But according to Charles Goredema, of the Institute for Security Studies (ISS) in South Africa, blank Kimberley Process certificates can be purchased for the diamonds from officials in certain African countries for as little as $20, thus bypassing the Kimberley Process, which was set to prevent the sale of conflict diamonds, he told IOL news website.

The Triads have also reportedly infiltrated the legal diamond trade in Lesotho.

Rough stones are flown into the small country where they are either smuggled out to Europe or laundered by mixing them with legal locally mined stones.

Due to its poor customs control, Lesotho is regarded as the preferred point of entry for illegal diamond trading, especially for large parcels of illicit diamonds.