Spanish Police Arrest "Blood Diamond Boss"
July 10, 24
(IDEX Online) - Armed police in Spain have arrested a man allegedly responsible for trafficking blood diamonds from Sierra Leone to fund a rebel group behind the country's bloody 11-year civil war.
He was detained last Tuesday (2 July) by Spain's national police after landing at Malaga airport on a flight from Brazil and is now being held in prison awaiting court proceedings.
The man, who has not been named, is alleged to be the head an operation set up to launder cash from diamonds mined under slavery conditions to finance the Revolutionary United Front (RUF).
"He was responsible for a business plot that would have facilitated the circulation and laundering of diamonds obtained by paramilitary militias that enslaved civilians in Sierra Leone," said Policia Nacional.
Police claim the suspect masked the diamonds' true origins, claiming they were from neighboring Liberia, and sold most of them to a Belgian company.
The investigation began in 2020 after a complaint was filed by a civilian victim who allegedly worked as a slave in one of the mines run by the paramilitary militia.
"After illegally obtaining these precious stones, mined mainly in the mines of Kono and Boedu, mines controlled by child soldiers of the Revolutionary Unified Front, the diamonds were delivered to one of the subsidiaries of the business network in Liberia," said police in a press release translated from Spanish.
"According to investigators, the arrested man would have participated directly in the face-to-face purchase of these diamonds, thus coinciding with military members of the RUF who made the delivery directly to him."
Pic courtesy Policia Nacional.