Diamond Thefts Cause Huge Dollar Losses

Chronicle (Levin), 16 March 1948, Page 5

Diamond Thefts Cause Huge Dollar Losses

Received Monday, 8.50 p.m. LONDON, March 15. Britain is losing millions of doilars in exports through diamond thefts in Tanganyika, reports the Daily Mail. Police inquiries, it continues, are being made in London and Amsterdam with the object of iutercepting gems smuggled out of Bast Africa. Some are mdustrjal diamouds m-val-uable to Britain 's production di'ive and others ars jewellers' piecej of enormous value. Investigations sbow tliat fortunes are being made by*cer- • tain Eui'opean and, Indian operato|*§, ^ New industries are being* launchsd in % India on the proceeds, of, diqgiond smuggling. Some European "'*'refugee^i'i to !East Africa -nfade: sq3i{«| cient out of the rackefc to --give exorbitant prices for land .XWllith British firms cannot- possibly -pay. The thefts are draihing iEri.tdili'isA greatest dpllar-earning industry _ in Bast Afi'iea: It' is cstimated» thliti tiie^ country ' s " Diamond, IDng 11, ■ T. Williamson, is losing 30 per'(5eiit. of his production of the mine he started in Shinyanga'- AThfs;-mine|has5i heen in continuous production since 1341- and promises "to: be oue of .-theh richest in the world. African workers swallow the diamonds ian;l sell them tq age;its who smuggle them out of T^iiganyika to the worl$Fs markets. The, European stalfs at the workiilgs are' so small that it is almost impossible to make a proper search of the workers. The police ' in Tanganyika ndmit thatthere is little they can do to prevent what is going on. They have neither the men nor the material.