London, England, Westminster Magistrates Court in London
A cleaner has appeared in court in London, charged with stealing diamonds, watches and jewelry worth $1.3m (£1m) from her employer, Princess Firyal of Jordan.
Maria Taborda Henao, aged 69, from Colombia, is accused of stealing the items between February and November 2020 and of selling them through an auction house.
The case against her at Westminster Magistrates’ Court (pictured) was adjourned on Monday (10 March) because there wasn’t a Spanish interpreter in court.
Princess Firyal, aged 80, is a noted humanitarian and philanthropist, and has served as a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador since 1992. She is the former wife of Prince Muhammad bin Talal, the second son of the late King Talal of Jordan.
The thefts of diamond rings, bracelets, watches and earrings allegedly took place at the princess’s $7.5m home in the exclusive Belgravia area of London. The case will resume next month.
The world’s largest pearl – weighing 27.65kg and valued at $98m is currently being displayed at a secret venue in Canada.
The Giga Pearl belongs to Toronto-based artist Abraham Reyes and is being shown as part of his Beneath The Surface exhibition of pearls, diamonds, and other precious stones.
The pearl was created 1,000 years ago by a giant clam, the largest of all bivalve molluscs (soft-bodied sea creatures with a hinged shell).
It has been certified by the GIA as the world’s largest natural blister pearl and holds the Guinness World Record.
Reyes inherited the pearl in 2019 from a great aunt after his grandfather bought it from a fisherman in the Philippines.
“I wanted to educate people about it,” Reyes said. “A lot of people don’t know that these giant clams exist because they’re endemic in the South Pacific. So this is something fascinating for people here in Toronto.”
The location of the Giga Pearl is being kept private for security reasons.
The Russian government could buy more rough diamonds from the state-run miner Alrosa, as it faces ongoing G7 sanctions and weak global demand.
The Finance Ministry says it will assess the situation after seeing second quarter results.
Alrosa last week reported a 77 per cent slump in profits for 2024 (down to $223m) and has said it could suspend some less profitable activities and lay off some of its 35,000 workers.
“As we have already said, it is possible that Gokhran will buy some of the stones, said Deputy Finance Minister Alexey Moiseyev, according to a report by the privately-run Interfax news agency.
“At this stage, we are still observing the market dynamics, indeed, it is quite weak, but not much time has passed. In principle, the first quarter is rarely good.”
Alrosa has previously offloaded excess inventory to Gokhran, the Russian State Precious Metals and Gemstones Repository in times of weak demand.
During the financial crisis of 2009 Gokhran bought up $1bn of Alrosa’s diamonds. And it sold back millions of carats in 2022, when a surge in post-lockdown demand outstripped the miner’s production capacities.
Last November it said it would be selling a batch of rough diamonds, including its largest recovery in a decade – an irregular-shaped diamond weighing 390.7 carats
Jewelry from the collection of screen icon Elizabeth Taylor are to be sold at a Beverly Hills auction.
The highlight is a ruby, diamond, and gold necklace (pictured) with lion’s face design and matching earrings. Estimate $100,000 to $200,000.
There’s also a 1935 Art Deco emerald and diamond brooch – old mine-cut and European cut – mounted in platinum and gold, with an estimate of $20.000 to $30,000.
And a gold and diamond Star of David pendant necklace designed by Theo Fennell and marking her conversion to Judaism in 1959. Estimate $20,000 to $30,000.
They’ll be offered for sale at Bold Luxury: The Limelight Edit auction by Julien’s Auctions, on 27 March 27 at The Peninsula Beverly Hills, along with fashion and other items owned by Marilyn Monroe, Cher, Victoria Beckham and Amy Winehouse.
“Bold Luxury is not just an auction — it’s an invitation to step into the limelight and own a tangible piece of cultural history,” said Martin Nolan, co-founder and executive director of Julien’s Auctions.
The 1,094-carat Seriti diamond recovered last September from Lucara’s Karowe mine, in Botswana, is now in Belgium, where it will be cut by HB Antwerp as part of an ongoing partnership.
HB, founded in 2020, cut the 1,758-carat Sewelo diamond and the 549-carat Sethunya diamond – both of which were recovered at Karowe and both of which were bought by Louis Vuitton.
Exact prices were not disclosed, although Lucara did say last month that the Sethunya and the 1,080 carat Eva Star, sold for a combined $54m. HB gave no details of a buyer for the Seriti.
Seriti is the world’s sixth largest rough diamond, and the sixth +1,000-ct diamond recovered at Karowe.
HB says it will use “groundbreaking technology, traceability, and expertise to unlock the full brilliance of nature’s most exceptional creations”.
That includes its proprietary Hyperloupe technologies, designed specifically for large (up to 6,000 carats) and complex diamonds.
HB has a 10-year contract with Lucara to cut all its +10.8-cts stones. They account for around 70 per cent of the miner’s revenue.
Rio Tinto reported a $127m loss for 2024 from its Diavik diamond mine, in Canada, as weak market conditions led to “fixed cost inefficiencies”.
That compares with underlying earnings of $26m in 2023. Rio Tinto’s diamond sector generated $297m of revenue during the year, a 37 per cent drop on $444m the previous year.
The British-Australian multinational emailed over 1,300 employees last September, offering them voluntary separations to reduce operating costs as it prepares to close the mine next year.
In its Full Year Results 2024 the company noted the tragic loss of four Diavik workers and two air crew when a plane headed for the mine crashed last January.
Rio Tinto reported a 17 per cent drop in production, from 3.3m carats in 2023 to 3.4m carats in 2024.
The company acquired full ownership of the mine in November 2021 after it bought out a 40 per cent stake from Dominion Diamond Mines.
Diamond Foundry, which has just opened a lab grown factory in Trujillo, western Spain, is facing an environmental backlash over claims it uses more water than the entire 8,500-population town where it is located.
Residents at a meeting earlier this month were told the new facility, built with $85m of European Union cash, was estimated to consume more than 730,000 cubic meters of water annually.
The huge facility will produce at least 4m carats a year and create 300 jobs. But environmental groups are concerned about the factory’s water usage, which is, they say “completely unsustainable”.
“There would be enough water for the diamonds but the population of Trujillo would have to buy jugs at the supermarket to drink, shower, cook, etc,” says an article in
Diamond Foundry, a Silicon Valley startup with Leonardo Dicaprio, star of the Blood Diamond movie, among its backers, is valued at $1.8bn.
“The water supply to Diamond Foundry is, once again, also in question, as it would cause serious supply problems for drinking water for the population of Trujillo and its surroundings,” according to the El Salto local news website.
It says the building is one of the first industrial projects in the world powered entirely by solar electricity and insists it holds the necessary permits to use reclaimed water from local treatment plants.
Botswana’s government signed on Tuesday a long-delayed diamond mining and sales agreement with Anglo American unit De Beers, the world’s leading diamond producer by value.
As part of the deal, Botswana’s share of the diamonds produced by Debswana, a 50-50 joint venture between the country’s government and De Beers, will increase from 25% to 50%. Botswana will receive 10 billion pula ($712 million) in development funding, in line with a provisional 10-year arrangement reached in 2023.
The agreement, in negotiations since 2018, also extends the mining licenses for Debswana until 2054. Previously, the licenses were set to expire in 2029.
The signing of the contract had stalled under former President Mokgweetsi Masisi but was prioritized by President Duma Boko, who took office last October.
Botswana, the world’s largest producer of rough diamonds by value, depends on the sector for the bulk of its national revenue. President Boko, however, has voiced concerns that the industry is not generating enough employment opportunities.
While Debswana’s diamond production accounts for 80% of Botswana’s exports, the country has struggled to diversify beyond mining. Despite a relatively high annual per capita income of $7,820 — exceeding that of oil-rich Gabon and South Africa, the continent’s biggest economy—job creation remains limited.
The deal comes at a crucial time for De Beers, as its parent company, Anglo American, considers spinning out the diamond business through a sale or initial public offering. Analysts warn that weak global diamond prices could complicate such a move.
Botswana remains integral to De Beers’ operations, supplying 70% of its annual rough diamonds. The government also holds a 15% stake in De Beers, underscoring the long-standing strategic partnership between the two parties.
The world’s biggest diamond miner, De Beers, cost its parent company almost $3bn last year as the growth in lab-grown stones continues to take the shine off the industry.
Anglo American was forced to write down the value of the renowned gem producer for a second consecutive year as its chief executive admitted the diamond markets had proved “really, really difficult for the company”.
Duncan Wanblad, the chief executive of Anglo American, added that its plan to shrug off De Beers as part of a radical strategy to dismantle parts of the 108-year-old group – which coined the slogan “a diamond is forever” in 1947 – may be delayed.
He added that the FTSE 100 company did not expect “much traction or progress” on its plans to spin off De Beers in the first half of the year, which could be via a trade sale or a listing via an IPO or demerger, but it might “pick up” towards the end of the year.
Diamond prices have slumped over the past decade because of the rising popularity of cheaper, lab-grown versions and a slowdown in consumer spending in China.
In response, Anglo has taken impairments of $2.9bn on De Beers last year, after a $1.6bn writedown of the company in its annual results last year. This drove Anglo to a $3.1bn net loss in 2024, from a $283m profit the previous year.
The latest writedown of De Beers, which once controlled 90% of the world’s diamond market, means the company is now valued at $4bn.
Anglo laid bare the ongoing losses at De Beers after setting out a plan last year to sell the diamond business as part of a historic corporate overhaul to defend the company against a £34bn takeover plot by the Australian miner BHP.
Anglo hopes to guard the company against further unsolicited advances from BHP, which attempted to force the board to offload two Johannesburg-listed subsidiaries, the platinum miner Amplats and the iron ore miner Kumba, in order to complete a takeover.
Wanblad said the company had received unsolicited interest in the diamond business but a formal process had not started. At least part of the company is expected to be purchased by the government of Botswana, which hosts many of the company’s diamond mines.
Anglo American’s troubled ownership of the De Beers group was brought into fresh focus on Thursday as the mining company announced a fresh multibillion-dollar write-down of the diamond group it’s trying to restructure.
De Beers, which nearly 80 years ago introduced the masses to the immortal phrase “A diamond is forever,” has lost its shine in recent years amid declining demand for diamonds, partly a result of the growth of cheaper, allegedly more sustainable lab-grown alternatives, and also from declining demand in its crucial Chinese market.
Anglo announced a $2.9 billion write-down in the value of De Beers as part of its 2024 annual results on Thursday. It was the second valuation reduction in two years, after a $1.6 billion write-down in its 2023 earnings.
De Beers now has a book value of around $4 billion, meaning the company has more than halved from a 2023 valuation of $8.5 billion. The current valuation includes a $2 billion stockpile of diamonds it has struggled to shift amid the downturn in the industry.
“It’s been a bad year for rough diamond sales,” De Beers CEO Al Cook told the FT in December.
Lab-grown diamonds and Chinese issues Duncan Wanblad, Anglo’s CEO, described the 2024 trading conditions for rough diamonds as “extremely challenging,” citing high midstream inventory levels and depressed demand in China for a steep drop in sales in the second half of the year. Anglo expects to remove 10 million carats from planned production this year, after removing 6 million in 2024.
De Beers has faced an identity crisis amid a drop-off in demand for authentic diamonds. That has partly been driven by brewing demand for lab-grown diamonds.
The group entered the lab-grown business in 2018, aiming for sustainability-minded customers. However, that proposition aligned with their relative affordability has caused the product to cannibalize some of De Beers’ customers, and it exited that market in 2024.
Wanblad said the lab-grown headwinds were surmountable. John Heasely, Anglo American’s finance director, suggested the expected continued decline in prices for lab-grown diamonds would continue to bifurcate the two markets, reducing the chance of lab-grown diamonds cannibalizing the genuine market.
In China, which has reduced the cumulative demand for diamonds by 40% in the last two years, Heasley noted changing behavior among retailers was adding to its inventory headaches.
The finance director said retailers in the country had started selling their polished diamonds back into the midstream market to recoup some of their expenditure. This led midstream inventories to spike in the first half of 2024, keeping the company’s rough diamond inventory fixed.
Anglo restructures De Beers Anglo has sought to restructure De Beers into an independent operation, which could result in either a sale or an IPO of the diamond company.
However, this restructuring has been delayed owing to myriad industrial headwinds the company has faced.
Wanblad said of De Beers: “I’m really not expecting much traction or progress in the first half of this year.”
Wanblad says it has agreed a framework with the Botswana government, which is a 15% owner in De Beers, to help it potentially initiate a formal sale process after receiving several “unsolicited inbounds” for the diamond company.
