Janine Farrell-Robert - Glitter & Greed: The Secret World of the Diamond Cartel

Brides-to-be hoping for a diamond engagement ring are advised to keep Glitter & Greed out of their fiances' hands.

The Boston Globe

Roberts has dedicated more than 23 years of her life to uncovering the truth and brutality of the diamond trade. Like the miners shuffling down dark shafts to search for the Earth's bounty, Roberts plumbs the depths to come up with the damning truth. She unearths the facts about diamond giant De Beers, explains that many flawless diamonds are actually man-made, and details how numerous people have been driven into poverty, physically hurt or even killed in the hunt for diamond wealth.

The Minnesota Daily

For the majority of the last two decades, journalist and activist Janine Roberts has investigated the world's diamond trade, from De Beers' mines in Africa to the coasts of Australia. Prohibited from entering such mines, Roberts was often forced to sneak her way inside, habitually leading to the discovery of abused mine workers, some mere children. In her book, she reveals everything she found as she searched across the globe, everything that De Beers and the Oppenheimer family tries to keep secret. Roberts delivers her information without any apprehensionit is a life's work, a piece to admire.

New City Chicago

In this intriguing expose, activist and writer Janine Roberts asserts that the actual cost of mining, cutting and transporting an average engagement-ring diamond is only about $10. Profits on the gem, she says, frequently go to line all the wrong pockets.

Star Tribune (Minneapolis/St. Paul)

What's been kept hidden from consumers, however, as author Janine Roberts points out in her newly published book Glitter & Greed, is that the recovery of those sparkling little gems of crystallized carbon is a very dirty businessmuch as it has been for over a century. That diamonds are rare and that each gem is unique are myths, just a few of many created by the mining cartel that has handsomely profited from a public addicted to conspicuous consumption.

Barron's

This book takes a much-needed look inside the diamond business. The myth is that diamonds are so expensive at the local jewelry store because they are very rare. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Midwest Book Review

Roberts describes how De Beers cons the world into paying so much for its cheap, plentiful diamonds and turns a blind eye to the eradication of the oldest culture on the planet.

The Ecologist

The world now recognizes the need to control conflict diamonds. Janine Roberts welcomes the progress but argues that the poor are still paying the price.

New Internationalist

Janine Roberts' book is a must-read for every African.

New African

... a formidably well-researched and widely-sourced account of the global diamond trade by the Australian-based investigative journalist Janine Roberts. It strikes this lay reader as one of the most dogged and damning exposes of a near-monopolistic industry to appear in years. The greater wonder is that it has appeared at all.

The Independent

If you're in the market for a tale of murder, intrigue, gem stockpiling and international smuggling, diamonds have it all. I can recommend Glitter & Greed.

The Observer

[Roberts] tells the world anything any man who has ever had to learn the four Cs (colour, cut, clarity and cost) already knows, that the diamond industry depends on myths to reap billions of dollars of profit. Listen up, all you starry-eyed bachelors, and think twice before you get sucked in.

Financial Times

Copyright 2003, 2007 Janine Roberts

All photographs Copyright Janine Roberts unless otherwise noted.

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ISBN-10: 1-932857-60-5

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Janine Roberts is that rare individual who unflinchingly speaks truth to power. She battles her way past all the obstacles and provides us a glimpse of those who are in the innermost circles of global power. But instead of being seduced by their power and wealth, she exposes what they do and how they do it and how it comes to hurt us all.

I count myself among the privileged in this world to know Janine and her work. In Glitter & Greed she graphically reveals the brutality of those who orchestrate the diamond wars that continue to wreck Africa today. She gave testimony for me at a hearing in Congress that was shocking in its revelations, but thorough in its documentation.

She has hunted down the shady dealers of the diamond cartel and of De Beers, itself. She reveals here for the first time the disturbing secrets of the individuals, governments, and corporations that have ruled the diamond world for the past one hundred years.

Read and get ready to defy conventional wisdom that no one really cares enough to challenge business as usual in the diamond world. For after reading Glitter & Greed, you will be compelled to act. Africans should mine, cut, polish, market, distribute, manufacture, and export the jewelry that originates upon its shores in much the same way that France controls its wine production and the United States controls its defense technology.

Former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney

There are many victims of blood diamonds:

The farmers crippled by landmines bought with diamonds

The children who lose limbs to diamond-mining terrorists

The African miners who dig diamonds for a pittance under dangerous conditions

The children and young people cutting gem diamonds in conditions the UN defines as slavery...

... And the customers who buy diamonds without knowing what they are supporting

Diamonds are crystallized carbon, forged in the interior of volcanoes.