Angola expels almost half a million foreign diamond diggers

Angola’s National Security Council (NSC) released a statement mid-February, reporting that from September 2018 to date some 450,000 illegal foreign citizens had been forced to leave the country.

The report said that that some 350 rough diamond businesses involved in the illicit purchase of diamonds had been dismantled. In addition to large sums of money, the reported said that 34,480 carats of diamond and close to 122,000 colored gemstones had been seized.

In the process, the National Security Council confiscated, among others significant numbers of backhoe loaders, loader machines, bulldozers, earth moving machinery, tractors, light and heavy vehicles, motorbikes, dredgers, washers, motor pumps, rafts, pneumatic boats, diamond detectors, air compressors, scales, generators, safes, containers and firearms.

According to the statement, the NSC’s carried out the actions “to force the withdrawal of citizens involved in diamond smuggling,” further specifying that the NSC had “expelled national and foreign citizens dedicated to plundering of resources in the provinces of Malanje, Uige, Lunda Norte, Lunda Sul, Cuanza Sul, Bié and Cuando Cubango.”