The misty West Coast town of Port Nolloth is in an uproar over the eight-year jail term handed out to a popular resident for racketeering. But the case does not seem to have dented business in South Africa’s gem smuggling capital.
Antonio Cesar Alves dos Santos was convicted and sentenced in the Cape High Court last month after an 18-month Scorpions probe. Scales, diamond prices and unpolished stones were found in his possession.
The court heard that Dos Santos used his auto spares business as a front for illicit diamond buying. He is far from being the only dealer in Port Nolloth, which lies strategically between state-owned Alexkor’s Alexander Bay and De Beers’s Kleinsee.
“People here don’t see diamond smuggling as a big crime,” explained a Port Nolloth policeman who asked not to be named. “It’s the same all over: people think diamonds are something that come from the ground, like God’s gifts. This is a smuggling mecca. On a Friday night, you can see the Mercedes and BMWs arriving.”
The local Portuguese-speaking community is said to be particularly deeply involved.
Many residents sympathise with Dos Santos, insisting he is a good man who cared for the community. Guesthouse owner Grazia de Beer said the convicted smuggler paid for a burglar alarm and paint for a town museum she had opened. He is also said to have funded a school soccer team, put up reward money in murder cases and taken toys to a five-year-old girl in hospital after she had been raped.
“Hy was ’n regte Robin Hood [He was a real Robin Hood],” one woman said. “He wasn’t stingy with his illegal cash,” said another.
Compounding the sense of injustice is the fact that Dos Santos is a family man with a local girlfriend (a data typist at the police station) and an 18-month-old daughter.
The general view is that Port Nolloth has far more serious crime problems, including drug trafficking and murder. Said a shopkeeper who asked not to be named: “I’m certain there are people in town accused of far worse who carry on just fine. It’s a case of money talks and shit walks.”
The shopkeeper’s ire was directed partly at an ex-mayor of the town, Nick Kotze, one of 33 people arrested in an anti-smuggling raid in 2002. Springbok police spokesperson Gerrit Cloete said Kotze was given an R8 000 fine and an 18-month jail term after being convicted on four charges of illicit diamond buying last August. After paying R32 000, Kotze, one of the town’s wealthier residents, walked free.
Residents raised the Kotze case, questioning why Dos Santos received a comparatively harsh sentence. But, in the first conviction of its kind, Dos Santos was found guilty of racketeering — when a person is accused of persistently being involved in illegal activity — as well as illicit diamond buying.
Most stolen uncut stones that end up on the black market come from the Alexkor, De Beers and Trans Hex mines along the coast and the Orange river, and it has been estimated that 30% of the diamonds mined there are smuggled out by employees.
This is despite high security and a roadside billboard blaring “fluit, fluit misdaad uit, [whistle crime away]”, encouraging workers to blow the whistle on corrupt colleagues.
Numerous smuggling syndicates operate in the area.
But in a hangover from the days when the government propped up De Beers’s “single-channel” marketing cartel, it remains illegal even to possess uncut diamonds, no matter what their source.
Even the Port Nolloth police say Dos Santos is a “nice guy” — but that he knew the risks. He became “te windgat, te mak [spoke too much, and became too casual]”. But there was no doubt he was “a big man” in the smuggling business. “The thing is, there’s lots of other big men here.”
Police believe the closure of the Port Nolloth gold and diamond branch five years ago has made it easier for smugglers, who know immediately when officers from Springbok or Alexander Bay are in town.
A senior officer from the Springbok diamond branch argued that the Dos Santos judgement, while “setting a good example”, had not necessarily affected the illegal trade. Smugglers had changed the way they did business, and inside information was harder to come by.
Explained one officer: “Smugglers used to use their cellphones to set up meetings and post observers to watch the police. Now, they’re not using new runners. If they don’t know him, they won’t use him.”