From the AFP:

Rights campaigners Global Witness called Tuesday for Venezuela to be excluded from the international diamond market, accusing it of undermining the fight against trade in so-called blood diamonds.

The group called on the European Commission to expel Venezuela for “flagrant non-compliance” with the Kimberley Process (KP), the regulatory system designed to prevent trade in diamonds used to fund conflicts.

The call to remove Venezuela from the KP stems from a 2006 report from Partnership Africa Canada (PAC) regarding the smuggling of diamonds in Venezuela. Although Venezuela is estimated to annually produce 150,000 carets of diamonds, it has officially exported none since 2006.

Recent efforts to halt illicit mining in Venezuela have led only to violence and death.  A combination of high taxes, ineffective currency controls and bureaucratic ineptitude has driven Venezuela’s diamond dealers underground. Lax controls allow them to smuggle the country’s entire annual diamond production out through Brazil, Guyana, Hong Kong, the United States and Belgium.

Read the report, The Lost World: Diamond Mining and Smuggling in Venezuela (PDF).

For more information, visit the Diamond Smuggling page at Havocscope.