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“Cosa Nostra Diamonds” - Sicilian mafia – Louis Liebenberg - Part 4

https://mafiainafrica.investigativecenters.org/2015/04/16/cosa-nostra-diamonds.html
Apr 16, 2015

Below are excerpts

Blood Diamonds? I Buy them cash.

Marange has the largest deposit of diamonds of Zimbabwe. After the prospecting rights expired for De Beers in 2006, President Mugabe’s ruling party, ZANU-PF, swooped in with the intention of extensively mining the valley.

To do so, ZANU first had to “liberate” Marange from thousand of poor civilians. With Zimbabwe suffering an economic crisis, civilians in their thousands flowed to the diamond fields, hoping to find a few gems.

Operation Hakudzokwi, or “You Will Not Return”, took place in late October 2008. Fifteen hundred Zimbabwean soldiers armed with automatic weapons and military choppers, trapped and then massacred hundreds of civilians.

Following the carnage, the Kimberley Process (KP), imposed a sales ban on Marange diamonds, lifted only in November 2011.

In January 2011, Antonino Messicati Vitale visited Zimbabwe with his cousin Salvatore Ferrante Jr and a group of Swiss and Bulgarian bankers. They were cementing connections for the Zimbabwe Diamond Opportunity, and scouting other deals.

Buying one million carats with cash is unimaginable to Europeans, but is daily life in Zimbabwe. “Significant parcels of diamonds are sold to dealers,” the source explained. “[Dealers] fly in, buy the diamonds in classified parcels and after transferring the funds, fly them out. They do not go through customs or immigration [control]. The Military are deeply involved.”

So when Messicati Vitale entered Zimbabwe in January 2011, he left with between $70m to $450m worth of illegal diamonds. Where these diamonds are now is speculation, but many of them likely made it onto the fingers or necks of rich Europeans, who are unaware that their expensive purchase is tainted with blood and mafia money.