DIAMOND SMUGGLERS.

Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 136, 11 June 1927, Page 36

DIAMOND SMUGGLERS.

AT WORK IN AFRICA. IMPREGNABLE BARRIERS. HOW THEY FALL BEFORE MAX'S CUNNING. The tremendous demand for diamonds, which is the joy and the hope of the world's diamond trade, is likewise proving a great stimulus to crooks. In the Transvaal an epidemic of illicit diamond buying has broken out, which refuses to yield to the stern measures long since adopted by the mine owners to stamp out the practice. In spite of the vigilant watch kept upon the native workers, and the severe penalties meted out to those found guilty of buying stones from them, an increasing number of diamonds are being stolen and secretly carried out of the Cape Colony. This much is known. But how do they get past the supposedly impassable barriers thrown around the diamond mine? Who buys them, and where do they go? Big Demand. Certainly conditions have never been more tempting to the diamond thief and smuggler than they are to-dav, for there is no question about their ability to dispose of their loot at alluring prices once they elude the watchful eye of the Government inspector. The value of diamonds is high all over the world, and, with the great increase in wealth in the United States, the demand is incessant and vociferous.

Ever since the war Americans have been spending on an average of £8,000,000 a year for diamonds, which is nearly four times what they spent for such luxuries before the war. This amount covers simply the cost of the raw stones as they arrive in American ports, and does not include such items as duties, sales tax, cost of cutting and setting the stones, and the by no means small profits of the dealers, which bring the total up to almost double the original price of the stones. These figures are secured from the records of the legitimate diamond trade. Heaven knows how much people turn over yearly to diamond bootleggers! A jeweller estimates that it amounts to millions.

Diamond crystals are small and easily secreted in inconspicuous hiding places, and they can bo transported witll greater facility than almost any other form of loot—in the human "tummy" if necessary —which advantages explain why they continue to disappear at the great South African mines in the face of deadly preventives.

"A Kaffir caught selling raw* diamonds in the streets of Kimberley," a South African official says, "risks being lynched. And any foreigner buying from him would get a bad man-haudling if the diggers caught him, even if he escaped being tarred and feathered.''

Most of the honest diggers, it seems, cherish a deep and lasting grudge against the illicit diamond buyer because it is due to his enterprising activities that they are subjected to ignominious searches for stolen gems at the hands of the mine detective staff, as well as to many tedious and humiliating regulations designed to prevent the theft of diamonds.

Kaffir miners are virtually prisoner? on their mine, as the only entrance to their living quarters on most mines is through a narrow underground tunnel, which can be entered only under the keen eyes of detectives. Walled in like gaol yards these quarters are surrounded by high wire-netting to prevent thieves inside throwing stolen diamonds to outside accomplices. The black miners live in iron huts inside the walled area, and are not permitted to leave the mine until their three or six months' contract has expired. A thorough search is then made of their huts, clothing and personal belongings, and, if suspicion prompts it, a man is even put under X-rays.

Precautions Necessary. Such precautions were established gradually after long and painful experience had proved it necessary. For in the early days of the operation of the mines there was a veritable plague of diamond stealing and illicit diamond buying, due to the case with which the stones could be filched and disposed of. Tho sharpest oversight could scarcely prevent nimble-lingered workers from slyly secreting tiny crystals on their persons while picking over the concentrates on the sorting tables or in handling the deposit in the rockers and puddling pans. Then, as long as they were allowed to roam about freely after their day's work was done, they had little difficulty in transferring the diamonds to the hands of sharpers, who were always on the alert to buy stolen stones for little money.

As it was impossible to trace or identify a stolen diamond, even after the thief had been caught and confessed his guilt, great quantities of the gems were secretly bought on the outskirts of the mines, and carried to the coast towns for sale or stealthily shipped to European markets. It has been estimated that fully fifty per cent of the diamonds taken from the diggings in the early days were stolen and sold in this way. Behind Eyelids. With the establishment of the new precautions and heavy penalties in the way of fine and imprisonment for 1.D.8.'5, the ingenuity of dishonest diggers has been taxed to the limit, in order to snatch a few diamonds. Stolen stones have been discovered behind eye lids, under finger nails, in ears and between toes and even stuck with lumps of clay to resemble warts on the Kaffir thief's black face. There have been cases where a man has taken the unusual risk of swallowing a good-sized stone. Hence the use of the X-ray. All these methods have been tried and failed and the suffering inventors punished. Yet others, even more ingenious, have evi--1 dently been discovered, because there is a steady flow, thin but persistent, of i stolen diamonds from the mines.

'Twas ever thus. Throughout the ages diamonds have exercised upon men a curious enchantment, which has caused them to risk all possible dangers and bear terrific hardships simply to possess them. There is not one great diamond of renown which does not own a sensational history. To win them temples have been profaned, palaces looted, fair ladies strangled, guests quietly murdered by their hosts, towns burned, battles fought and dynasties all but obliterated. Some gems are reputed to have inherent powers for good and evil. There is the Hope diamond, for instance, which is supposed to carry a tidy little curse all its own, which operates to the vast disadvantage of the person possessing it. Those who hold to the baleful influence theory point to the disasters which have overtaken the owners of the Hope diamond, .

The Regent Diamond. Even the famous Regent diamond, which now rests in tranquil dignity behind a glass case in the Apollo Gallery, of the Paris Louvre, had a distinctly hectic infancy. It was found buried in *he bank of the Kistna River in 1701, having apparently been washed down from the great Indian mines, which yielded the Koh-i-noor and other diamonds of fame. The man who found it, tragically enough, was a slave, forbidden to own property. For him to keep the stone required desperate measures, but it meant freedom, ease, and luxury in some peaceful, far-off country. Or so the poor devil, thought. Thus, he ■cut his leg deeply to pouch the stone in his flesh, and wrapped the wound in a deep bandage. Then, watching his chance, he ran away to the sea coast and found refuge 011 an English merchant ship.

But the captain of the ship was a poor man, who had come to dislike the sea. and he, too, felt the lure of the diamond. To him it likewise meant freedom from a life lie despised and a pleasant, easy retirement in an ivy-covered cottage in hngland. Y\ hen the vessel reached the open sea he took the stone and threw its owner overboard to drown. Soon afterward, it glittered brightly on the silk covered counter of an Indian merchant, where it was seen by the Gover nor of Fort St. George, Thomas Pitt, grandfather of the Earl of Chatham. He immediately bought it believing— not without foundation— that he had made his fortune in the purchase. So impressed was Thomas Pitt with the stone's value that tlie guarding of it became an obsession with him. He would not permit it to be out of his sight or touch day or 11 isrlit, though he was constantly tortured by the fear of being set upon by thieves and murdered. It is said that, as long as the disturbing gem remained in his possession, he never slept under the same roof twice, but moved from room to room and from place to place, sometimes in disguise, and at a few minutes' notice, seeking thus to elude possible robbers. Fortunately for his peace of mind, he finally sold the diamond for £13."),000 to the Duke of Orleans, Regent of France during the minority of Louis XV.