MUTARE – Zimbabwe Consolidated Diamond Company (ZCDC) has this week deployed a crack team to curb the leakage of diamonds in a suspected well-orchestrated syndicate implicating the company’s employees, Zim Morning Post Can reveal.
Addressing delegates at the all stakeholders diamond Indaba in Mutare on Wednesday, the ZCDC chief security officer Elias Mvere said the company is complementing efforts to safeguard the diamonds.
“We have changed the security companies that have been working at the mine.
All efforts are being made to assist the security companies to fully grasp and execute their mandate,” said Mvere.
“We have also widened our pool of private security and informers as we believe that with more reliable and accurate information, we can stop the scourge,” he added.
He said through the expanded intelligence and investigations it has been realised that the syndicates involve ZCDC employees, state security agents and operatives working in cahoots in giving access to the
illegal diamond dealers.
“We have erected an electric fence fitted with thermal cameras as well as an alarm system.
“This reflects the company’s seriousness in
tackling the issue of illegal miners intrusions,” Mvere said.
It is believed that thousands of diamonds carats worth billions of dollars are being smuggled out of Zimbabwe from Chiadzwa diamond fields, transported via private jets and feeding the thriving international black market through sophisticated syndicates involving ZCDC senior
employees, state security agents, Zanu PF politicians and wealthy buyers.
An emotionally charged Chief Benard Marange said he was angered by the way the diamonds are being looted.
“I do not know what is going on. I see aeroplanes hovering the skies at the diamond fields and we begin to wonder what is going on,” he said.
While the true extent of theft of diamonds from Marange and the identities of players involved in the looting will probably never be known in the absence of an independent commission of inquiry, extensive investigations by this publication have shown that company officials are at the centre of a well-orchestrated scheme to siphon gems from the controversial fields for delivery on the international
black market for precious stones.
According to our investigations, most of the diamonds are being siphoned from Chiadzwa fields and disguised as diamond ore robberies.
The ‘robbers’ believed to be members of the army, take the loot to wealthy international buyers in Mutare, where they are largely smuggled through Mozambique en-route to India and Dubai among other Asian countries.
