Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe's wife was among those who gained millions of dollars from illegal diamonds mined in the east of the country, according to a US cable obtained by Wikileaks. "High-ranking Zimbabwean government officials and well-connected elites are generating millions of dollars in personal income by hiring teams of diggers to hand-extract diamonds," US ambassador James McGee wrote to Washington in 2008.
"They are selling the undocumented diamonds to a mix of foreign buyers, including Belgians, Israelis, Lebanese, Russians and South Africans, who smuggle them out of the country for cutting and resale elsewhere." The cable then discussed a meeting with Andrew Cranswick, chief executive of the British mining firm African Consolidates Resources, that had a claim to the Chiadzwa mine revoked by the Harare government, according to McGee. "According to Cranswick, there is a small group of high-ranking Zimbabwean officials who have been extracting tremendous diamond profits from Chiadzwa," it said, naming Mugabe's wife Grace and Central Bank governor Gideon Gono.