Other countries have tended to turn a blind eye to conflict diamonds, and some dealers in the main trading centres have been willing to buy the stones for years. Everyone gets a cut but some more than others. The RUF in Sierra Leone sells its diamonds to dealers, predominantly Lebanese, for 90 to 95 per cent of their rough value. The dealers smuggle them across Sierra Leone's porous borders into Liberia, and to a lesser extent, Guinea. The dealers then arrange for the stones to be despatched mainly by air to the main trading centres for rough diamonds such as Antwerp and Tel Aviv.
Couriers typically receive a commission worth one per cent of the value of the stones.
An Antwerp diamond dealer said on occasions the dealers smuggling the stones into Liberia could sell them for up to 120 per cent of their value because drug runners in Monrovia were keen to launder money. The dealer also recounted how, en route from Sierra Leone to Belgium, he stopped off in Conakry in Guinea. Customs and police officers whisked him through passport control in the hope of persuading him to pay a bribe in return for allowing him to smuggle out diamonds. It is a natural destination for the smuggled stones. The city's diamond district is concentrated in three dingy streets near the railway station.