Funneled through secretive networks, these precious
gems can carry a huge cost in human suffering.
“Diamonds are not really a commodity like gold or silver,” a leading New York dealer
explained to me one day. “You won’t buy a stone from a jeweler and then sell it back to him
for the same price—he’s not going to give up his profit. But they are definitely the easiest
way to move value around. I know a guy who had to leave Iran at a moment’s notice during
the revolution there. No time to sell his house or get to the bank, but he had time to pick up
30 million dollars’ worth of diamonds and walk away.”
“They are a form of currency,” remarked Mark van Bockstael of the Diamond High Council
in Antwerp. “They back international loans, pay debts, pay bribes, buy arms. In many cases
they are better than money.” Monrovia, capital of Liberia, for example, is known as a mecca
for money launderers seeking to turn questionable cash assets into diamonds that can then be
easily moved and sold elsewhere. There have been unconfirmed reports that Osama bin
Laden’s terrorist organization, al Qaeda, made use of this operation.
As van Bockstael expounded on his favorite subject, we were strolling to lunch from his
office in the city’s diamond district, the heart of the world’s diamond bazaar. Eighty percent
of the world’s rough gem-quality diamonds are traded every year along three short streets
next to the Antwerp railroad station. The Antwerp district has extensions in many cities:
West 47th Street in New York, London’s Hatton Garden, the high-rise offices of Ramat Gan
in Tel Aviv, not to mention the Opera House district in Mumbai (Bombay) and the other
“diamond cities” of India, where, in a union of modern technology and cheap labor, 800,000
workers craft stones weighing a fraction of a carat into polished gems. Each of these business
centers revolves around personal contact and connections, thrives on rumor and gossip, and
cherishes secrecy. Multimillion-dollar deals are clinched with a handshake and the word
mazal, Hebrew for “good luck.” “So many secrets,” sighed van Bockstael as we skipped to
avoid a cyclist in a long black coat and a broad, flat, fur-trimmed hat. “Nothing is what it
seems in the diamond business, and half the time you don’t even know if that’s true.”
****
Associating diamonds with love and emotion has long been the key marketing strategy for
De Beers. Fundamental to the campaign is the famous slogan “A Diamond Is Forever”—
embracing the twin notions of eternal devotion and eternal value. Sometimes De Beers
advertisements are more explicit about the role of its product in the mating game: “Of course
there’s a return on your investment,” ran one full-page offering just before Christmas 2000.
“We just can’t print it here.”
De Beers may be single-handedly responsible for prompting, in less than a century,
American, European, Japanese, and, increasingly, Chinese women to expect the “traditional”
gift of a diamond engagement ring as a matter of right. But myths that associate diamonds
with love and devotion go back long before De Beers’s marketing campaign.
In Indian mythology gems are considered to have a cosmic power in and of themselves.
Astrologers advise clients on which gems to wear in order to alter their destinies, and
diamonds, according to one practitioner I consulted in Hyderabad, exhibit powerful effects
on love, procreation, and, by extension, immortality.
Given their supernatural powers, it is not surprising that jewels have deep religious
significance in India. Thus it was that in a gold-plated Hindu shrine high in the hills above
Tirupati northwest of Chennai (Madras), I found a god adorned in diamonds.
The ancient idol, nine feet tall (three meters) and carved of black stone, stood at the end of a
narrow passageway. This was Balaji, fast becoming the most popular deity in all India. In the
line behind me, stretching back miles, tens of thousands of excited worshipers chanted his
name, the sound competing with the roar of nearby machines sorting the donations—destined
to be used for the temple’s charitable enterprises—that poured into collection sacks at the
entrance.
Balaji wears a colossal shimmering crown of diamonds. It weighs almost 60 pounds (27
kilograms) and contains no less than 28,000 stones. His hands are covered with more
diamonds; his ears sport massive diamond earrings. Close by are a diamond-encrusted conch
shell and discus, his traditional accessories.
As Nanditha Krishna, an elegant Chennai matron and ardent Balaji devotee, explained
somewhat superfluously, “He likes diamonds.” Among other examples, she cited the
experience of a friend who had promised Balaji a valuable diamond ring and then thought
better of it, only to have the ring violently sucked off his finger and into the collection sack
by an unseen force as he entered the shrine.
Deposited in the brimming treasure vaults of the temple, the ring would have joined priceless
relics of an era when India was the world’s sole source of diamonds. Southern Indian
kingdoms and empires grew powerful on the wealth pouring out of the alluvial mines of the
eastern Deccan Plateau, much of which was deposited at Tirupati and other temples as
offerings from devout rulers. Their religious obligations fulfilled, kings and princes indulged
themselves with exotic jewelry in forms and settings similar to those bequeathed to the gods.
Travelers from far-off Europe marveled at the profligate display of wealth at the royal courts.
According to one awestruck 16th-century visitor, even the king of Vijayanagar’s horse wore
a “city’s worth” of jewels.