One of the world’s largest, 709-carat diamond found in Sierra Leone by a Christian Pastor was bought at auction in New York by Laurence Graff, a British billionaire and jeweler, according to the Rapaport Group, an international diamond trading network that handled the sale.
The egg sized,diamond was sold for $6.5 million by Sierra Leone to fund local development projects, dealing a blow to smugglers in the West African nation. Of the proceeds of the stone dubbed the “Peace Diamond,” the government will get 59 percent or about $3.9 million in tax revenue to fund clean water, electricity, schools, health centres and roads, said Martin Rapaport of the Rapaport Group.
“As a government, particularly in Africa, it has always been the narration of corruption, and the mineral wealth is not benefiting the people”, said Abdulai Bayraytay, a spokesman for Sierra Leone President Ernest Bai Koroma, at a news conference.
