Georgian citizen Tengiz Kikinashvili, who attempted to smuggle a case full of small diamonds, was arrested in August 2008at Ben-Gurion airport, Tel-Aviv.
Kikinashvili couldn’t present any document for the case. According to his own estimation, the smuggled goods were worth of US $200.000, but Israeli experts defined that the illegal load was worth of more than US $1 million. The diamonds were confiscated, but Kikinashvili was sentenced to house arrest till investigation.
Later on, some information agencies reported quoting the Israeli police that Kikinashvili was the chief and one of the owners of “Artsakh Diamond” Armenian Company and the smuggled diamonds were of Russian origin, APA reports.
The news agency underlines that Kikinashvili repeatedly visited Sierra-Leone, Congo and Angola to buy diamonds for DCA (Diamond Company of Armenia) owned by Armenian MP Gagik Abramyan. According to the available data, Kikinashvili holds 15% of the shares of Artsakh Diamond registered in Khankendi, and DCA is the main owner of the Company. Artsakh Diamond is considered to be the modernization of Gagik Abramyan’s projects on improving lapidary industry that started with the establishment of “Andranik Daskh” Company in 2002. These projects drew Armenian diamond dealers’ attention for their attractiveness, because the diamonds taken to the territory of “Nagorno-Karabakh Republic” automatically disappeared from legal diamond market and it was easy to spend the money profited from their sale on buying weapons for security agencies of the so-called “Nagorno-Karabakh Republic”. The unrecognized “Nagorno-Karabakh Republic” isn’t the member of “Kimberley Process” designed to control circulation of diamonds and prevent their use for criminal and terror purposes, and doesn’t report to anyone about diamond dealing in its territory.
Although Kikinashvili was arrested with Russian diamonds, it was not difficult to find out the sources of their origin. The large Russian diamond refinery “Crystal” has signed a memorandum with Armenia’s DCA Company in March 2008. According to this agreement, the Russian Company is to transfer 500 thousand dollars worth of small diamonds to Armenia every month. The Company explained its actions with unprofitability of storing such diamonds in Russia. Russian mass media informed last summer that “Crystal” had sent the first part of diamonds to Armenia, and as if they are already refined there. However, it became clear later that the Russian diamonds sent to Armenia were found out in Kikinashvili’s case in Israel.
So, it turns out to be quite obvious that “Artsakh Diamond” Company was involved in the diamond trade between Russian “Crystal” and Armenia’s DCA. It is not inconceivable that leader of Russian Armenians’ Council, Ara Abramyan, brother of Gagik Abramyan, played a definite role in establishing contacts between DCA and “Crystal”. Russian diamonds were sent to the “black market” via this mechanism and turned into unregistered cash money. The volume and cost of the diamonds found out in Kikinashvili’s bag are exactly equal to the two lots sent by “Crystal” to DCA. As he is not a member of Israel’s diamond exchange, he has no right for any official deal in Israel. The identity of his client is not clear yet, but it is absolutely evident that not only businessmen have interest in diamonds as “immovable currency”, but also “Hizbollah” and “Hamas” representatives.
APA
