The first diamond mines in South Africa were dug on a farm, as Britannica explains, owned by the brothers Nicolaas and Diederick de Beer. Their two mines, known as the Kimberley and the De Beers, were once the most productive in the world. This led to the formation of the company, De Beers Consolidated Mines Ltd which was quickly sold to the newly formed London Diamond Syndicate. Now known simply as De Beers S.A., this company still markets around 40% of the world's diamonds, operating in over 20 countries on every continent except Antarctica.
De Beers, however, has been involved in no small amount of shady behavior. As Reuters reports, their secretive business practices have seen them compared to a cartel, criticized for benefiting from colonialism and South Africa's oppressive Apartheid government in the 20th century, continuing to rely on cheap labor for profit despite officially opposing the government's racial policies.
1996 saw De Beers banned from operating in the U.S. over a price-fixing dispute but, according to the UAB Institute for Human Rights, this company also has blood on its hands. De Beers' most egregious acts have involved buying diamonds from war-torn regions in Africa. In the 1990s, De Beers bought a billion dollars worth of these diamonds. Known as conflict diamonds or, more commonly, blood diamonds, these sales fund violence and abuse. This problem was brought to light around the turn of the 21st century.
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