The underworld of gemstones

In recent decades prices of high-end “colored gemstones” (trade jargon for precious stones other than diamonds), like almost all “collectibles,” have risen dramatically. Demand has been spreading to economic classes formerly excluded at the same time the supply of high-quality material from natural sources falls, leading to constant searches (that may take on the character of gold-rushes) for as yet undiscovered sites. While no doubt criminogenic factors have always existed within the gemstone business, periods of rapid price rise mean stronger temptation for illegal activities. The potential list of economic offenses, civil, regulatory and criminal, associated with the gemstones business includes: illegal mining, environmental offenses, bribery, gun-running, smuggling, “terrorist”(i.e. insurgent) financing, commercial fraud, mining-share swindles, money laundering and, not least, simple theft along with recycling stolen goods. This paper represents an attempt to understand the criminogenic factors in light of the history and current structures of the business. It fits the gemstone trade into a commercial, geo-strategic and sociological matrix, the three often interacting in mutually reinforcing ways. It asks whether, given the incentives and opportunities for illicit activity, relying primarily on industry self-regulation makes sense. But it also questions whether the international regulatory regime now in place for diamonds can be applied to the far more diffuse supply-side conditions of the colored gemstone market. Methodologically, the paper is a research essay in the political economy of clandestine international economic activity, with particular focus on its historical, geo-strategic and sociological context rather than a more narrow, traditional criminological study. The second may work well enough when the activity under investigation is a crime per se, as with studies of illegal drugs. However when the activity is inherently legal, but conducted illegally, it is essential to understand thoroughly the nature and operation of the legal business to make sense of the illegal. The illegal is buried in and works concurrently with the legal, not in the narrow sense of having the legal as cover, but in a more profound sense of the legal and the illegal sharing attitudes and supporting institutions. The paper is divided into three parts. The first, “Under the Rainbow,”examines the shady side of gemstone mining in a geo-political context. The second, “In the Eye of the Beholder,” looks at fraud in cutting and polishing of rough gemstones into finished gems. The third, “Hot Rocks, Cold Cash,” focuses on illicit activity in the retail jewelry trade.