4 Comments
Spanish authorities arrested a man at Malaga Airport on suspicion of smuggling blood diamonds into Europe. Blood diamonds, mined through forced labor in conflict zones, fund brutal wars.
Police allege the detainee, a Spanish national, masterminded a scheme to launder and distribute these diamonds. Investigators believe his activities directly supported the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) during Sierra Leone’s civil war.
The investigation began in 2020 following a complaint by a former slave laborer from an RUF mine. Police traced the detainee to a company suspected of profiting from blood diamonds.
Throughout the 1990s, the detainee allegedly coordinated a network spanning several countries, including Liberia, overseeing the mining, trade, and export of diamonds.
Blood diamonds from Sierra Leone’s Kono and Boedu mines, controlled by RUF child soldiers, were funneled into the network. RUF soldiers delivered the stones directly to the detainee, who then laundered them as legally obtained diamonds in Liberia.
These “clean” diamonds were then sold, primarily to a Belgian company, for entry into the European market.
Acting on intelligence, Spanish police apprehended the man at Malaga Airport on July 2nd. He had been residing in Brazil since 2007.
Collaboration with Brazilian authorities proved crucial to the investigation’s success. A subsequent search of the detainee’s Costa del Sol property yielded documents and electronic devices for further investigation. On July 5th, a magistrate remanded him to prison.
Sierra Leone’s brutal civil war (1991-2002) claimed over 70,000 lives and displaced 2.6 million people. The Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL) later found the trade in conflict diamonds, mined with forced labor, to be a key source of funding for the war. The UN declared such trade illegal.
To me it seems that the report is incomplete,
Thank you !
Hmmm why now? Westerners knew about them all. Gus from Holland got €20000 fines for the lives losted in that war and they don’t set him free but we are still in Europe without a single respect from their people because such news is not published here but they publishing about the Sierra Leone as unsafe place and poor place to be while their flights is always full of those diamonds and gold smugglers. We don’t blame them anymore we blame ourselves and the poor minds leaderships and their teams. Go to immigration office and see how many of their passports protected by our own officers as they are leaving the country, they giving them those chicken changes left, and the officers saying thank you sir. And they ordered another low rank officers to escorts the smugglers to airport. While in the airport standing European and Lebanese people trying to find out and preventing real Sierra Leoneans to travel out of their country for business. This is because Sierra Leoneans are fighting against each other, speaking big English terms and foreigners keep taking your riches out of their borders this a normal life everyday at all your borders because the officers in charge fight for them pockets and panic when they see an European person as a son of the slave master. Think big and think to grow rich your nation and your people and stop undermining yourselves Sierra Leoneans.
Sierra Leone 🇸🇱
It’s pity and shame to our country without vision
Those in power has betrayed the love and loyalty we should embrace
The seeking for private and single protections in order to drive away poverty is a big uncivilized and barbaric mental thought.
Brother Sierra Leonean fighting 😔😔 against brother in the interest of their pursuit desires
They have drained the economic stability and growths
Leaving the masses 😭😭 in emmaciated bones and bleak future
When you move to other part of the world there you will realized the unsantity and dehumanization
The lion 🦁 mountain and the lion cannot roar again
Oh salone 😀😀