Interesting article from the Globe and Mail:
POSTED AT 3:07 AM EST Thursday, March 29
'Blood diamonds' entering Canada, police fear
By ANDREW MITROVICA
From Thursday's Globe and Mail
Canadian police are worried that criminal gangs are smuggling so-called "blood diamonds" from war-torn countries into Canada to circumvent international embargoes.
"We are seeing suspicious rough [diamonds] in Canada," RCMP Sergeant Ray Halwas said. "We are seeing some that we aren't able to source. We are seeing rough [diamonds] being smuggled into Canada from other parts of the world."
Canada has taken the lead in international efforts to ban the smuggling of "blood diamonds" from several African countries by traffickers, corrupt governments and local warlords. The diamonds are sold on the black market to raise money for regional conflicts that have left thousands dead or maimed.
"You can launder them through Canada by mixing them with [certified diamonds] ... and at the other end just call them Canadian stones," Sgt. Halwas said in an interview from Yellowknife.
Critics of the illicit trade say Canada's reputation could be tarnished.
"If we [Canada] are in any way involved, then we are implicated in these horrible human-rights abuses," said Ian Smillie, who co-wrote a recent United Nations report concerning the traffic in diamonds from Sierra Leone. A senior Sierra Leonean government minister said Wednesday that rebels were smuggling ever more diamonds across their front line and that the gems are being sold officially, meaning they have the certificate designed to prevent their sale internationally.
Sgt. Halwas also warned that organized crime is beginning to make the first tangible inroads into Canada's fledgling and lucrative diamond industry. "Organized crime has a clear interest in the industry," he said. "That is something that we expected to see, and now we are seeing it."
Trade in blood diamonds has flourished worldwide because the gems are portable, easily concealed and guaranteed sources of cash, Sgt. Halwas said.
The diamonds, he said, are likely entering Canada through Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal. "Often, the people involved in the illicit drug trade are also involved in the illicit diamond trade."
Mr. Smillie said that Canada's relatively new diamond industry may be providing cover for the illicit traffic. In an interview, he called on Ottawa to move swiftly to prevent "our diamond industry from being infected by criminal elements."
Sgt. Halwas said intelligence reports show that criminal syndicates from Eastern Europe and Asia, as well as biker gangs, are attempting to infiltrate the industry by posing as legitimate job-seekers.
"Intelligence [shows that] people associated with organized crime either have applied [to work] or have worked in the industry in one capacity or another in Canada," he said.
The Ekati, northeast of Yellowknife, is the country's only diamond mine; it produced $600-million worth last year. Three more mines are planned in the Far North; another discovery has been made in Ontario, and there may be one in Labrador.
Mining experts insist that Canada will overtake South Africa as the world's top producers of gems within 20 years.
Sgt. Halwas warned that "if left alone, the probability is high that crime would become very entrenched in the Canadian diamond industry, as it has been able to do so in other parts of the world."
Sgt. Halwas said that attempts to keep tabs on the diamond industry have been hampered, in part, by a lack of resources and of federal and international laws to combat the trade in illicit gems.
Sgt. Halwas remains the only member of a special division the Mounties set up in 1995 to battle what law enforcement and intelligence agencies at home and abroad call an elaborate international smuggling network that reaps millions of dollars a year in profit.
"I'm the only person on this project at this time," he said. "We are just getting started here."
Mr. Smillie said that one RCMP officer in Yellowknife is wholly inadequate to monitor Canada's mushrooming diamond industry. "It's important that the RCMP has the resources to keep 'conflict diamonds' out of the country."
Sgt. Halwas said he is about to make a formal proposal to Ottawa, urging that a small stable of investigators be hired to combat organized crime's growing interest in the lucrative industry and the trade in illicit diamonds.
"We ultimately don't want to have a large number of investigators out there successfully investigating diamond thefts, if we can have a few people out there preventing them. We want to get started sooner, rather than later," he said.
With a report from Reuters News Agency |
