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De Beers Unit Says `Substantial' Amount of Gems Stolen at Namibian Plant
De Beers’ unit Namgem said a “substantial” amount of rough and polished diamonds has been stolen from its factory in Okahandja, 67 kilometers (42 miles) north west of the Namibian capital, Windhoek.
Namgem, the first diamond cutting company to be established in Namibia, is controlled by Namdeb, a venture equally owned by the Namibian government and De Beers, the world’s largest diamond producer.
“The Namibian Protected Resource Unit as well as Namdeb/De Beers Marine Namibia security investigations team are working around the clock to investigate the incident,” Kennedy Hamutenya, the chairman of Namgem, said in an e-mailed statement today.
Namibia is the world’s biggest source of gems mined at sea and the diamonds it produces are the world’s best quality, averaging around $321 a carat, according to the Windhoek-based Institute for Public Policy Research. The country is pushing miners to cut and polish more stones locally to create jobs and boost export earnings.
De Beers is 45 percent owned by Anglo American Plc, 40 percent held by the Oppenheimer family and 15 percent owned by the government of Botswana.
Namgem was established in 1999 and employs about 120 people, according to De Beers’s website. Lazare Kaplan International Inc. of New York operates the plant.
To contact the reporter on this story: Chamwe Kaira in Windhoek via Johannesburg at ckaira@bloomberg.net
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