The news that after two convictions by different courts the State Bank of India in Antwerp has been cleared of all its money laundering charges is certainly a cause for a sigh of relief. It isn’t that no money laundering had taken place—the facts speak for themselves – but it had more to do with the responsibility and liability of... Read More...

Ian Smillie, the always somber and serious looking peace activist, has just completed an extensive presentation on the Diamond Development Initiative (DDI) to a working group of the Kimberley Process in Moscow. It may be recalled that this joint initiative, launched in late 2004 by De Beers, Global Witness and Partnership Africa... Read More...

Consider a hypothetical question:  Will you buy diamonds from Frank T? Frank T. is exploring for diamonds in Sierra Leone. His company’s diamond concession areas exceed 12,000 square kilometers (almost half of the country’s diamond fields) and it seems a sure bet that Frank may well become a major source of high quality... Read More...

Dear Sir, Allow me to give you an international perspective on the U.S. Treasury’s anti-money laundering and anti-terrorist financing rules for the diamond and jewelry industry. Last year... Read More...

Banks provide the oxygen the diamond business needs to operate. The positions of the diamond bankers tend to be analyzed in a similar fashion as U.S. financial market players interpret every word uttered by Federal Reserve chairman Alan... Read More...

The European Union was in the vanguard of both the Kimberley Process and the enactment of anti-money laundering compliance rules. The Belgian government, as a responsible member of the European single market, passed all the... Read More...

A Belgian diamond trading organization complained to the European Commission against De Beers after one of its non-Sightholder members “was surprised and shocked to discover that a representative from DTC had visited two of his... Read More...

It was just another sunny May day in Illinois, when Madison County Circuit Judge George Moran Jr. entered a default... Read More...

In terms of anti-money laundering (AML) and combating the financing of terrorism (CFT) legislation, the Indian diamond... Read More...

Alrosa President Alexander Nichiporuk has decided that out of his conglomerate’s total diamond production of some $2 billion a year, about 30% is... Read More...