A Houston diamond dealer with a sketchy past is one of four businessmen being held in the Democratic Republic of Congo after being stopped shortly after arriving on a private jet with more than $6 million in cash that apparently they were to exchange for gold under the protection of a general indicted for war crimes....
The Provincial Governor Julien Paluku told the Associated Press that the four passengers on the plane had a "special mission of buying gold." Mineral trade and mining exports were banned by the government in eastern Congo last year to deter the armed mafia-like groups that control the industry....
A U.N. panel of experts on Congo reported in 2010 that virtually all mining deposits in the eastern portion of the country are controlled by armed groups. It said that demilitarizing Congo's mine sites was needed to clean up the trade, hence the new law, but there is little evidence that the ban has put an end to the efforts of rebel groups and senior Congolese commanders to profit from what are considered by some experts conflict minerals.
"There are a bunch of armed groups in this neighborhood, and they get preferential access to minerals by force," Stearns told the Chronicle...
The story's a bit confusing; it's not clear as to whether the group was double-crossed by Congolese Gen. Bosco Ntaganda or whether he rolled with the punch by claiming his men intercepted the buyers after themselves being intercepted by government forces. Needless to say, the marketplace there is a lot more perilous than the NYMEX.
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