Conflict Diamonds and Militant Financing
After the 1998 attacks on U.S. embassies and civilian facilities, in Nairobi, Kenya and Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania, the Clinton administration froze some $240 million in assets belonging to Afghanistan's Taliban government and Osama bin Laden. Al-Qaeda, caught by surprise, searched for an alternative to confiscated gold reserves.
The decision was made to shift funds from the formal banking sector into negotiable commodities, such as these were diamonds and tanzanite. These minerals were already in places without tight controls:
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- Tanzanite is only found in a small corner of Tanzania,
- diamond trade al Qaeda tapped into in West Africa was centered in Liberia, where the corrupt regime of Charles Taylor also controlled diamonds mined by his allies in neighboring Sierra Leone. In Sierra Leone the diamond fields were under the control of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF).
"Al Qaeda already had long-standing ties to the gemstone trade. Documents and testimony presented during 2000 the trials of Wadih el Hage and Mohammed Sadeek Odeh show that al Qaeda, even before the U.S. embassy bombings, was dealing extensively in diamonds, tanzanite, amethyst, rubies and sapphires, mostly as money making ventures. According the trial transcripts, senior al Qaeda leaders were deeply concerned about the possibility that an al Qaeda operative was carrying a large quantity of stones when he drowned while crossing a lake."
"Commodities- or trade-based money laundering includes the smuggling of bulk cash and the evasion of federal reporting requirements used to track money laundering with commodities such as diamonds, precious metals, gold, and tobacco."
Read more about this topic: CIA Transnational Anti-crime And Anti-drug Activities
Famous quotes containing the words conflict, diamonds and/or militant:
“Sometimes the children who are no problem to their parents should be looked at more closely. This is especially true if those children are extremely obedient and have few friends their own age. A good self-concept allows children to explore the world, risk engaging in conflict and failing. Children who play it safe by never disobeying or risking conflict may be telling you that they feel unqualified to face the world head-on.”
—Lawrence Kutner (20th century)
“I met a traveler from Arkansas
Who boasted of his state as beautiful
For diamonds and apples.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
““I” is a militant social tendency, working to hold and enlarge its place in the general current of tendencies. So far as it can it waxes, as all life does. To think of it as apart from society is a palpable absurdity of which no one could be guilty who really saw it as a fact of life.”
—Charles Horton Cooley (1864–1929)