Second Conflict Diamond Arrest
By Rob Bates -- JCK Online, 7/1/2007 2:00:00 AM
In the second conflict diamond–related bust in the span of a few months, federal agents seized 957 diamonds in Wilmington, Ohio, allegedly imported in violation of the 2003 Clean Diamond Trade Act.
The diamonds, worth $10,848, were discovered during a routine inspection, reports say. The diamonds were allegedly sent from a company in Spain to another in Indiana. According to authorities, the shipment did not have the proper Kimberley Process documentation.
Meanwhile, the first conflict diamond bust turned out to be a dud. Federal prosecutors dropped charges against one man intercepted in Arizona who was accused of smuggling 11,000 cts. of rough stones into the United States and trying to sell them during the Tucson, Ariz., gem shows. Charges against a second man, Maliki Diane, 60, a native of Sierra Leone now living in New Jersey, were reduced to a misdemeanor. He was sentenced to one year of supervised release.
The duo's attorneys argued the stones were low-grade industrial stones and therefore not subject to Kimberley.
