With all due respect to my friends at ABN AMRO in Antwerp, I couldn’t give a hoot about $28 million worth of stolen rough, cut, and polished diamonds. What really is infuriating is that a steady client, one who frequented the bank during the last year almost on a daily basis (and often twice a day), was able to get away with using a false identity – he was simply an imposter. That is something that should worry each and every one of us... Read More...

Purchase a small producing diamond mine for $130 million in Lesotho, buy a few more non-producing concessions in the Democratic Republic of Congo, raise $200 million privately on the London market, and then, if your name happens to be Clifford Elphick, you go and list on the London Stock Exchange at a corporate value of well over $1.09 billion. All of this happened within the span of roughly half a year. Read More...

The Court has spoken. The Honorable Mr. Justice Henderson in the London High Court has dismissed all allegations made by Jayam N.V. against the DTC. The claimant charged that the DTC’s allocation system and, in particular, its use of a "capping mechanism," which is based on historical... Read More...

Driving in Botswana’s murderous summer heat from the Sir Seretze Khama airport near Gaborone to the city, one immediately passes an enormous construction project – the new DTC Botswana building. And next to this, DTC-to-be is the new Debswana building in the making. The surrounding construction is reminiscent of the building craze in places like Dubai. Actually, when driving... Read More...

When visiting South Africa, it is always fascinating to see how De Beers, its chairman Nicky Oppenheimer, and its managing director Gareth Penny are portrayed by the local establishment press. In that regard, this week was definitely one of the better ones for De Beers. In a cover story, the highly respected Financial Mail hails Penny’s ascendancy “from villain... Read More...

For many years, we have pleaded in these columns that no government should pass diamond industry specific anti-money laundering and anti-terrorism financing (AML/CFT) legislation without consultation with the industry. We feared more Belgium-type situations where the rules are so out-of-tune with accepted industry... Read More...

Forget about all the juicy stuff going on in the London High Court case (Jayam N.V. versus DTC), which includes admissions by the Diamond Trading Company (DTC) that it had provided wrong information to the Ombudsman, had used extraneous data in its allocation process (outside of the Sightholder profile), and that its legal department was caught unaware of the facts... Read More...

During the past few days, Antwerp and New York have demonstrated something about the ocean-sized gap that exists between the respective diamond and jewelry industries and their regulators who enforce anti-money laundering laws. In Antwerp, in the so-called Monstrey Worldwide Services courier case, a dozen diamond offices were raided, close to 10 people were arrested, and goods and records were seized; some 40 detectives participated in the action. According to newspaper reports, “the anti... Read More...

The place and time: This past Tuesday night at 10:00 pm, the El Al lounge at Heathrow Airport, London. The people: a handful of diamond industry earthlings, plus yours truly, who either were not privileged to attend that evening’s annual DTC dinner with clients or who, for other reasons, chose not to go. The activity: receiving “live” cell phone reports on the actual tidings emanating from. Read More...

Fabrikant’s eight main U.S. secured lenders have all, in separate and unrelated actions, sold their debts to five different hedge funds that specialize in investing in bankruptcies and distressed companies. The total amount involved is $161.9 million of debt, which was sold for approximately $85 to $90 million. This amount, from a banker’s perspective, was much better than they expected. Read More...