Where are the stones?, page-52

Seems likely to me that Mustang retreated from competing in cut stones because the established groups are just too savage. Cash for gems in Africa can't be a gentleman's game and the established middle-man and cutting arrangements must be hard-won and jealously defended.

If they were De Beers or someone maybe they could hire security, cough, cough, mercenaries, and try to tough it out, but they don't have the capital backing or experience to do it - nor probably the appetite for it, for that matter.

Sensible to realise it, albeit late. No doubt seemed a good, profitable idea on paper, just not possible in the real world. Must be rough as guts over there.

So, they chucked the gems back onto the piles of rough, or have kept them to quietly show off now and again. I guess they feel the specific quality of them has become immaterial and talking about it can only be counter-productive. Signals they have genuinely backed off from that plan.

They can compete with rough suppliers because the govt gets more tax / royalties and so won't tolerate them getting beaten up just for doing that. Maybe their govt contacts helped explain why trying to break in to cut stones market was a non-starter.

Rightly or wrongly, I get the sense the decision is more about avoiding catching a bullet, or on fire, than any perceived risk of rough buyers not buying from them out of resentment.

If my surmise is true, it would be too politially sensitive to say so publicly and risk upsetting their abilty to operate there altogether.