The World Diamond Trade

Diamonds are the most elegant and expensive gemstones. The Greeks thought it stars fragment fallen from the sky, but the truth is diamonds are a crystallized carbon with a super physical qualities and fabulous look.

Diamond trade is one of the most profitable businesses in the world. Nearly all of the diamond businesses are held by families. The biggest diamond mining company belongs to the De Beers family (De Beers Consolidated Mines Ltd) which controls over 80% of the world diamond production, sending most of the diamonds to Antwerp, Belgium. Also known as the number one diamond center in the world and from Antwerp it is redistributed to other parts of the world, like Dubai which is one of main hubs for diamond trading, and also to India where they cut and polish the diamonds because of the cheaper costs. Finally it will be sold for the customers around the world.

Also, there is another illegal diamond trade. The Conflict Diamonds (Blood Diamonds) which means the diamonds mined from conflict hot spots around the world (epically Africa) and sold by the warlords in the black markets, so it can be an economically support to them and they can continue the fight.

In the last ten years the UN (United Nations) started to deal with the problem which begins to be worse. By placing many countries under economical sanctions, so they can't sell any of those blood diamonds. But even with those efforts. There are still huge quantities of smuggled blood diamonds around the world.