Until the Kimberley Diamond Exchange opened in 1999 – with tight security, surveillance cameras and two double sets of iron gates – the birthplace of the South African diamond industry had all but disappeared from the radar of most serious diamond buyers. What had been the epicenter of the country's diamond rush had since become best known for the world's largest manmade pit, the "Big Hole" as it is simply called, created by diamond diggings in the diamond rush of the late 19th century.
The history of the place is entwined with that of De Beers Consolidated Mines Ltd., better known simply as De Beers, which was founded by British imperialist Cecil Rhodes in 1888, when the fabulous wealth of the newly discovered Kimberley diamond fields gave rise to the company that would become the world's diamond monopoly. At the height of its powers, De Beers controlled about 80 percent of the world's diamond supplies, striking joint venture deals with most producing countries that enabled the company to control the release of diamonds onto the world market and thus maintain its prices. De Beers, now a privately held company with offices in Kimberley, Johannesburg and London, today controls about 60 percent of the world's diamonds.
De Beers gradually offloaded its Kimberley diggings during the 1990s because of a supposed dearth in diamonds, leaving the city as little more than a nostalgic base for the company's board meetings and Harry Oppenheimer House, its main diamond sorting center for southern Africa, named after the man behind the modern De Beers diamond cartel. But in the last two years, there's been a boom in diamond sales in the small town.
Twice a month, the exchange offers its diamonds for sale, putting this little town back on the world diamond map. Foreign dealers, packed into small prop planes, make the 70-minute flight from Johannesburg International Airport to Kimberley's own small airport. From there, they drive to the single story building with opaque windows on the outskirts of the town's dilapidated business district that serves as the Kimberley Diamond Exchange. After submitting their tenders, or bids, the diamond traders usually fly out the same day.
The sudden renaissance of Kimberley has been attributed to new diamond discoveries in what De Beers regarded for years as worthless land – at least for mining. And that has fed rumors in the close-knit international diamond community that Kimberley has become a major laundering center for Africa's "conflict diamonds" – diamonds from areas of Africa wracked by civil war, where combatants use their control of the mines to fund arms purchases for their fight.
Officials from the South African government diamond valuator – an independent company appointed by the government to value and monitor diamond exports – say they suspect that diamonds from countries to the north are being laundered through the diamond "diggings," or small mining operations, around Kimberley. Local diggers who have habitually mined only a few carats a month have been turning up in Kimberley with the equivalent of a small mine's production. Their explanations range from "I hit a good pocket" to "I put these away for a rainy day," according to the officials, who spoke only on condition they not be named.
Derek Corns, who together with his brother has spent time on diamond diggings in Angola, runs the Kimberley Diamond Exchange, and is popular with international diamond traders. Corns does not believe his exchange deals in conflict diamonds, but he is pragmatic. As long as dealers supplying him with diamonds provide invoices, he said, "It's legal, in my book," even though the invoices provide no proof of the diamonds' origin. Corns says his buyers include some of the biggest names in the diamond business – including top clients of De Beers – and they would be able to pick out suspect stones with ease. "If it's that illegal, why be here?" he asked.
The word in the industry, which Corns acknowledged is making the rounds, is that easily identifiable diamonds from other African countries, such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo, have been identified by people familiar with such stones. One dealer recently brought in a parcel of Russian diamonds, Corns said, and police were alerted.
While there have been several investigations into conflict diamonds in Kimberley, no charges have ever been filed and, in fact, South African authorities have never convicted anyone for dealing in conflict diamonds, in part because of the difficulty in proving the origin of the stones.
Yet intelligence sources have named some players in the Kimberley Diamond Exchange as traders in conflict diamonds. One prominent diamond trader who is a De Beers "sightholder" – the term used to denote the elite cadre of about 120 dealers selected to buy and market the company's rough stones – was alleged in a 1999 classified European intelligence report to have continued buying diamonds from Angola – a hub of conflict diamond trading – after the United Nations banned purchases from African nations known to deal in conflict diamonds. He is also known in the diamond industry for having ties to Hezbollah, the Islamic terrorist organization.
Corns explains the increase in the exchange's business this way. Local diggers have made up to 30 percent more money selling through him – as opposed to selling their stones themselves – and so they have been able to invest in more equipment and find more diamonds. His main contributor and shareholder in the exchange, Chris Potgieter, has a large digging operation near Kimberley and is now reputed to be the biggest diamond miner in South Africa after Trans Hex, a South African diamond company, and De Beers. Potgieter bought the main area he mines from De Beers in 1997 for about $200,000. Between January 2000 and October 2001, sources told ICIJ, Potgieter recorded $40 million in diamonds sales – up to $2.6 million in some months alone – with the South African Diamond Board, which is supposed to monitor and regulate the country's diamond mining industry and diamond exports.
Diamond experts are divided as to whether he could produce such amounts from his mine. One expert, speaking privately, said he thinks Potgieter's operation is legitimate and essentially a mining miracle and does not believe that Kimberley is being used for large amounts of "hot diamonds." Potgieter simply employs old-fashioned diggers who have proved themselves extraordinarily adept at handling their sorting pans, the expert said. He also has one of the biggest fleets of mechanical digging machines in the country and runs a lean, efficient operation. In comments to ICIJ, Potgieter said his operation had expanded considerably, and that his original De Beers' plot was now "one of 10 [mining] operations."
De Beers' original prospecting notes regarding some of these same diamond sites suggest that no such bounty was in the offing. In August 1965, the company's geologist recorded that "No diamonds were discovered during the month" at Koppiesfontein, a mining area near Kimberley. The same was reported for that September. In October, the notes said, "Three diamonds were recovered from Paddock 20 during the month with weights of 1.47, .32 and .17 carats." One year later, De Beers' geology department again reported to the mining commissioner that no diamonds had been found. The report concluded "Diamonds recovered nil. Labour used 16 Africans (26-day month). Loads excavated 648. Loads washed 52."
Yet more than 35 years later, those same mines are supposed to be the source of Kimberley's sudden flood of diamonds.