In a message dated 3/24/01 12:10:30 PM Eastern Standard Time,
Eugene.Leitl@lrz.uni-muenchen.de writes:
<< Grlygrl201@aol.com wrote:
> these stones are guaranteed mined in canada. i don't know that debeers can
> guarantee that none of their stones are smuggled from siera leone, even by
> employing an imprint.
Isotopic abundancies fingerprint. It's a bitch to check, but essentially
impossible to forge (though you can synthesize such diamonds at a large
price premium (thus removing the incentive), they'd fail other fingerprint
checking).
>>
De Beers, which operates a world-wide diamond cartel, has sworn not to buy
diamonds in conflict areas including Sierra Leone. But Smillie said that
DeBeers still maintains a diamond trading company in Liberia knowing that
Liberia has no diamonds of its own, only ones from Sierra Leone. Because
diamonds are small and easily smuggled, it is difficult to control them.
http://www.alternet.org/print.html?StoryID=9142
gg
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