J. H. Du Plessis

Illicit Diamond Buying or IDB and selling in Africa has always been a contraversial subject. Diamond mining in Africa on a large scale can be traced back to the 1860's when the first rough diamonds of gem quality were found in the Kimberley area in the Northern Cape and gave rise to a mining rush to firstly gather the alluvial diamonds and thereafter locate the Carboniferous dimond bearing pipes in the blue ground . Individual claims and sifting sands for the elusive precious stone gave way to larger operations as claims were amalgamated , were flooded or drained, rapidly changed hands and a giant big hole appeared . New companies with capital formed and big players with large capital appeared . . Ultimately by 1880 Cecil Rhodes had consolidated the claims and monopolised the then largest supply of diamonds . and His political positioning and manouvering led to led to all diamonds that appeared on the open market that had not been sourced from his tightlly controlled sources to be considered to be illegal, illicit and laid the possessor open to criminal prosecution . It was a monopoly over the supply of gem diamonds and by controlling supply , prices could be managed and super normal profits made by immoral men with grand imperial ambitions such as Rhodes . In theory monopoly controls could work only if supplies of diamonds could be restricted. Shoot forward 70 years or so and new supplies of diamonds were appearing in Africa . IDB laws still remained in place but now the focus was on creating a single Central Selling Organization to move all rough diamonds from their raw natural state to the clewvers , cutters and polishers of diamonds . Diamonds were international in their appeal, their pricing and their movement across borders.

This book is about IDB in Africa at a specific moment in time, the late 1950s when a South African ex policeman recruited by the International Diamond Security Organization tries to track down new and illegal sources of diamonds in the then Northern Rhodsia (today 's Zambia) and the then Belgian Congo . It was the tail end of empires in Africa , when smugglers and detectives could easily travel by road or fly across the continent and before the disaster of the Congo and bloody wars of independence . large and crooked men were hard drinking, gambled on horses or diamonds , gun toting , and adept at the karate chop. They were not afraid to kill or take risks. Their women were loose fun girls , who likesd their men virile, tall and tough . Hunting wild animals was part of the scene. Illicit diamonds could be hidden in the crops of hunted game birds and easily moved through remote customs posts . This is the story of adventure in Africa . African men feature as domestics or sly spivs and double crossing spies spies who use English to convoluted comic effect. The supposition is that profits made in illicit diamonds went to fighting The Greek cause in Cyprus of the 1950s . I do not think the book covers The history of the industry or the context of the story particularly well . The author puts himself at the centre of the action and he is the hero . It is not difficult to sort The good from the bad guys. there is no discussion as to the morality of declaring certain kinds of diamonds to be illicit .

Published in English 1960 this book enjoyed some success . It was translated
Into French and German . It must have been a best seller in its day, and an Internet search shows that there was a TV programme or two . Here is a real live less thsn sauve South African James Bond character ranging through Africa after the diamond deal and the dodgy characters this particular underworld attracted . The style tries too hard to be racy, fast paced and entertaining . It claims to be fact but it reads like fiction . There's lots of "remembered" reported conversations and dialogue, but for today's reader the slang is dated and the racist attitudes and assumptions jar . It is dated too in that so much has happened in the African diamond world and today blood and conflict diamonds led on to the Kimberley Process and to far more sophisticated efforts to stem diamond theft and criminal greed. Diamonds continued in the intervening decades to finance wars. The book is pretty light weight and it's interest lies in its period appeal, the inclusion of some interesting photographs , and a useful map of Central Africa . I see it has become a collectable book but I think there are better and more serious analytical accounts of the diamond industry and the international movement of diamonds via legal and illegal channels. This book is in my library because I am interested in diamond and gold mining history and at one stage of my own career I studied diamond identification and grading . If you are looking for a thriller there's nothing to beat Ian Fleming and the James Bond books . For me this is a two star book and it earns a place on my shelves by a narrow call.

this illegal trade.… (plus d'informations)