A report by Global Witness, published last week, claims that diamond smugglers are using social media platforms – including Facebook and WhatsApp – to smuggle diamonds out of the Central African Republic (CAR) and into numerous international markets. This week, according to Rough & Polished, CAR mines minister Léopold Mboli Fatran rejected the allegations.
Fatran commented that the report was based on only a few testimonies and that it “lacked substance”. He added that the country was aware of cross-border smuggling of rough diamonds, and that the activity was “exacerbated by the effects of the KP suspension from May 2013 to May 2016, and certainly with the use of new technologies and social networks”. However, Fatran added, “the government declares that this phenomenon is clearly declining at present due to the courageous measures that have been taken to ensure better control of the green zones recognized by the KP”.
The Global Witness organization sent an employee who posed undercover as a diamond trader for a year. The agent found that “sellers and middlemen [in CAR] were tagging potential buyers in Facebook posts and then using private messages to develop relationships and negotiate deals”. In 2016, The Kimberley Process (KP) readmitted CAR into the Kimberley Process, permitting it to resume exports from certain regions as long as they compiled with “regulations to prevent conflict-diamond trading”.
However, Global Witness claims that smugglers were managing to move diamonds “with ease” past all the checks, and smuggling them across international borders.
