Abstract
Criminals love diamonds. This chapter presents a series of the most spectacular diamond robberies in Europe in the twenty-first century, including the famous robbery from the Antwerp Diamond Quarter and the Museon in The Hague. None of the stones were found. What happened to the stolen diamonds and to where could they disappear? This chapter deals with organised crime groups operating in Belgium and Israel, and the attempts to protect and prevent diamond-related crimes. The link between diamonds and drugs and diamonds and weapons, fraud, and money laundering are presented here based on concrete examples from fieldwork and media reports.
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Notes
- 1.
Rapaport News, 17 September, 2003, http://www.diamonds.net.
- 2.
The Guardian, Wednesday, 8 November, 2000, Friday, 9 November, 2001; CBS News, London, 7 November, 2000; CNN, 7 November, 2000.
- 3.
The Guardian, 19 February, 2003; Rapaport News, 17 February, 2003: http://www.diamonds.net/news; CNN. com, February 28, 2003: http://edition.cnn.com/2003/WORLD?europe/02/27/belgium.diamonds.ap/.
- 4.
BBC News, 14 February, 2004: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/world/europe/3364911.stm.
- 5.
Also interviews with the scholars who studied the Italian Mafia, such as Letizia Paoli and Ernesto Savona (CIROC Seminar, December 2006, Amsterdam) and intensive literature research, did not bring me closer to knowledge of this criminal organisation.
- 6.
Het Niewsblad, 20 May, 2005.
- 7.
Rapaport News, 5 December, 2003: http://www.diamonds.net/news/; Gems and Jewellery. Trade News, 2003; http://www.gemsgateway.com/trade_news/trade_news_3html.
- 8.
BBC News, Tuesday, 20 July, 2004.
- 9.
The Scotsman on-line, Saturday, 24 July, 2004: http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=847412004; Japan Today, Thursday, 11 March, 2004.
- 10.
BBC News, Monday, 27 September, 2004; The Observer, Sunday, 3 October, 2004.
- 11.
The Society of Mineral Museum Professionals, http://www.smmp.net/carbonado.htm.
- 12.
Telegraaf, Monday 2 December, 2002; RTLNieuws, Tuesday 3 December, 2002.
- 13.
The crow bird family includes the jay, magpie, jackdaw, carrion crow, and rook; on: http://www.naturegrid.org.uk/biodiversity/birds/crow.htm#raven.
- 14.
Campbell, 2004:113.
- 15.
The names of family members are changed here for privacy protection, however, the present and other described here cases regularly appear in the media, often with full and real names of the offenders and sometimes even witnesses.
- 16.
ORT6, First Channel, Russia, Thursday, 22 July, 2004.
- 17.
The names are changed.
- 18.
Knack, 22 September, 2004.
- 19.
New York Times, 21 July, 1999; The Observer, 10 November, 2002.
- 20.
They sometimes are also called the ‘desperate widows’ e-mails, as many of these messages begin with sentences such as ‘I am a widow of a dictator. . . .’ or ‘I am a son-in-law of a former general. . . .’
- 21.
Black magic is used in many cases of women trafficking from African countries. The rituals vary from making a ‘voodoo-doll’ which can be beaten the moment the girl steps out of line, to rituals exercised by ‘African Doctors,’ as one girl from Malawi put it. During such a ceremony, a girl’s blood is mixed with wine, and both the girl and the doctor take a sip. By doing this, they conclude some kind of ‘magic contract,’ in which the girl becomes dependent on the doctor (Van Dijk, 1999).
- 22.
The former Energy Minister in Itzhak Rabin’s government, Ronen Segev, got involved in a smuggling operation of XTC from the Netherlands to Israel, misusing his expired diplomatic passport (Maáriv, 10 May, 2004). The mixture of the underworld and politics in Israel is not new. The Likud MK, Inbal Gavrieli, was elected to the Israeli Knesset through the influence of her father and uncle, two big figures in Israeli organised crime. The father, Shoni Gavrieli, was a target of a mob hit in 2004, when four contract killers from the former Soviet Union placed an explosive under his car in Tel Aviv centre (The Jerusalem Post, 9 March, 2004).
- 23.
Such as Shamgar Report in 1981; Shimron Commission in 1978; etc.
- 24.
The Jerusalem Post, 9 March, 2004.
- 25.
De Tijd, 14 September, 2004.
- 26.
Ha’aretz, 8 September, 2004.
- 27.
Another godfather of the Israeli underworld and the main rival of Abergil, Zeév Rosenstein survived an assassination attempt in December 2003, when a car bomb went off in Tel Aviv, killing three people. Rozenstein is considered one of the major figures in organisation and distribution of XTC around the world.
- 28.
In interview with Peter Landesman, August 2003, in Suddeutsche Zeiting (in German) short version; see also on: http://www.ruudleeuw.com/vbout15.htm and ‘Arms and the Man’ in New York Times Magazine, 17 August 2003, on: http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/17/magazine/17BOUT.html.
- 29.
Amnesty International, 2005, Democratic Republic of Congo: Aiming the east.
- 30.
Since 2000 he has resided in London.
- 31.
The Guardian, 9 July, 2001; Washington Monthly, January–February, 2002.
- 32.
Knack, 16 May, 2001.
- 33.
Le Soir, 4 June, 2001.
- 34.
New York Times, 7 March, 2008; CNN, 6 March, 2008; The Observer, 6 March, 2008.
- 35.
De Standaard. 16 November, 2001; Het Nieuwsblad, 16 November, 2001; De Financieel-Economische Tijd, 16 November, 2001.
- 36.
De Financieel-Economische Tijd, 7 August, 1998; De Financieel-Economische Tijd, 3 April, 2001.
- 37.
De Financieel-Economische Tijd, 3 April, 2001.
- 38.
Thus, eight diamantairs were involved in a case related to alleged accusations that employees of the State Bank of India encouraged money laundering by giving credits to several Indian diamantairs in Antwerp. The case was dismissed by Belgian Court of Appeal in June, 2005, http://www.indiadaily.com/editorial/3363.asp.
- 39.
National Jeweler, 5 October, 2004.
- 40.
London Evening Standard Online, 22 June, 1999, http://fpp.co.uk/online/99/06/Frankel1210699.html.
- 41.
Department of Justice, FBI New York Division, Press Release, at: http://newyork.fbi.gov/dojpresserl/pressrel07/moneylaundering071307.htm.
- 42.
Rappaport News, on: http://www.diamonds.net.
- 43.
Law.Com, on: http://www.truthinjustice.org/judge-gross.htm.
- 44.
On 18 March, 2008 Gross was removed as a District Court judge.
- 45.
New York Law Journal, 16 July, 2007.
- 46.
Rapaport News, 23 March, 2006, on: http://www.diamonds.net.
- 47.
Hayahalom, 2005:20.
- 48.
Rapaport News, 13 December, 2005.
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Siegel, D. (2009). Diamonds and Mafia: Criminal Networks and Illicit Markets. In: The Mazzel Ritual. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-95960-3_9
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