Where In The World Does This Diamond Come From?

Eight billion US dollars worth of diamonds are produced every year, from mines all over the world. So why is it important to know where diamonds come from? In the film, James was suspicious because the diamonds were supposed to have come from a mine in Iceland - a place where diamonds had never been discovered before. If you look at the map below you can see all the areas of the world (white blotches) where diamond has been found. Does Iceland have a white blotch over it? No. So James was right to be suspicious. He sent the diamonds to be tested. The laboratory found that they were typical of 'conflict' diamonds from Africa, and not from Iceland where Gustav was supposed to have mined them.
Why was Gustav lying about the source of the diamonds and what are 'conflict' diamonds? After a lot of searching, I found the answer. Conflict diamonds come from countries in the world where there is civil war. Rebel armies, which fight against the governments of the countries, mine diamonds and sell them illegally. They use the money to buy weapons, which allows the fighting and the bloodshed to continue. This has happened in many countries, including Sierra Leone, Angola and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Conflict diamonds are estimated to account for only about four per cent of the world's production per year. This might not sound like a lot, but it is thought that in the last six years, an Angolan rebel group called UNITA has raised $3.7 billion from selling conflict diamonds. The proceeds from diamonds is thought to be the only source of funds for some of these rebel groups, so the rest of the world has decided not to buy any diamonds from these countries.
Stopping people buying conflict diamonds is not simple, as they can be smuggled out in to neighboring countries such as Liberia where they are sold as legitimate diamonds. How do people know this is happening? Geologists can estimate how many diamonds a region should have in its volcanoes and rivers and how much it will produce in a year. Some countries appear to be selling more diamonds than physically possible, so they must be getting them from somewhere else, such as smuggling them from countries where diamond selling is banned. The diamond companies are worried that if the public were to think that that there is a chance that the diamonds they are considering buying are funding wars where people are dying, they may not buy them, which would result in the collapse of the diamond market.
So how did James's colleagues know from the laboratory report that they were conflict diamonds? The lab test showed that the signatures of the diamonds were typical of conflict diamonds? There was something about the diamonds - some evidence within their structure that gave clues about the region of the world where they were mined.