A peek at the perilous lives of Arusha's ‘Tanzanite Club’

Gemstone dealers are a class of businessmen that is after power and status. Inevitably for some, their lives have come to revolve around big money and organised crime. PHOTO | FILE 

By Zephania Ubwani The Citizen Bureau Chief  (email the author)

Posted  Sunday, September 15   2013 at  02:00

In Summary

• The rendezvous is famous for the sale of gemstones, especially the rare tanzanite, between the brokers and small-scale dealers.

Arusha. A tinted Range Rover arrived and parked on the sidelines of a busy street in the heart of Arusha city. Its occupants are on their routine mission of business transactions.

The rendezvous is famous for the sale of gemstones, especially the rare tanzanite, between the brokers and small-scale dealers.

Immediately after the vehicle was parked, two motorcycles with four armed men got to the scene and ordered the driver and his two passengers to surrender anything valuables in their possession.

Eyewitnesses said at least two of them were armed with pistols while another had a gun. The gangsters made away with tanzanite gemstones whose value was estimated at about Sh5million.

But the scuffle did not end just like that. Two of the dealers were critically injured through gun shots which rent the air, hardly a kilometre from the central police station and other well guarded areas.

The thugs sped away in broad daylight and are still at large. The victims of the robbery had to be rushed to a hospital in Nairobi for specialised treatment.

The incident took place only days after a prominent tanzanite dealer in Arusha, Erasto Msuya, was gunned down in a hail of bullets near Bomang’ombe town in Hai district, Kilimanjaro region.

The killing sent shock waves across the three northern regions - Arusha, Manyara and Kilimanjaro - mainly because Mr Msuya had distinguished himself as among the most successful gemstone dealers.

But for insiders in the industry, the incident was yet another mysterious attack in the underground world of gemstones where large amounts of money or the minerals are stolen and lives lost.

The scramble for tanzanite, a mineral found only at Mererani some 60 kilometres from Arusha, has attracted several people to the dusty township.

Among them have been jobless young men from nearby towns as well as farther afield. Others are those with some experience in mineral excavation after working in abandoned mines elsewhere in the country.

There are also some business people who merely opted to seek fortunes in the lucrative gemstone deals. These include the brokers and dealers, some turning into exporters of the rare gem.

The scramble does not necessarily have to be in Mererani but also in the streets of Arusha where several roads have been turned into informal, open-air gemstone markets.

Incidentally, the business has turned out to be very lucrative for the Maasai, who traditionally rely on livestock herding for their livelihood. They now form the majority of brokers/dealers downtown.

Licensed dealers and brokers have also opened shops in the town while large and medium-scale operators have made substantial investments. But these have not made tanzanite business safe and secure.

The problem begins with the scramble for the minerals inside the pits. This has seen diggers losing their lives or getting injured while fighting for the best resources underground.

Characterised by poor security and safety, hundreds of unlicensed dealers and smuggling of the minerals worth millions of dollars outside the country, the tanzanite business has been shrouded in mystery.

The recent killing of an Arusha businessman in Hai district and shootings that followed downtown, took place only weeks after the killing of an employee of TanzaniteOne who was working underground.

Investigations by the police on the latter killing in mid-July are still underway. But Mererani has seen similar deaths in the past which have raised fears on the safety and security of the industry.

Some killings have been seen to be pure robberies with the gangsters taking advantage of the loopholes in the business to ambush dealers possessing huge amounts of cash or the minerals.

In the past, such robberies were reported along the roads leading to Arusha from Mererani.

In the 1990s, other deaths occurred between Arusha and Namanga, when dealers were taking the minerals to Kenya for export overseas.

But for the last 10 years or so, killings have taken place right inside the mine pits.

Experts say the border lines between different shafts operated by different miners have not been clear, especially underground.

This is, however, not the only reason for the fatal shootings underground.”The armed robbers who operate there would just storm into an area they believe to have high grade tanzanite.

The diggers who resist, are shot”, said an official of one firm. It could not be established how many gemstone miners operate in Mererani.

Some of them, especially the large and medium scale companies, are licensed. Many others could be operating without licences.

Stories abound of deaths associated with rituals undertaken there by the miners in the hope of striking fortunes.

Many dealers believe hard work and luck were not the only factors for making one rich overnight but that concoctions of some charms could help.

Recently, there were reports of a kidnapped infant which was blamed on one dealer. The baby was to be taken to Mererani to be used in some rituals but was rescued by the police en-route to the mining town.

Information about human sacrifice being used to strike more minerals has been very difficult to obtain.

But rumours abound on some human parts being collected and taken to the mines as tools for sorcery. There are reasons to believe so.

Mererani has been associated with some of the horrific mining disasters in the country. In such incidences, while people are pulling out bodies of trapped victims, others would perceive the underground deaths as signs of abundance of gemstones.

However, much concerns have been on fatal shootings like what happened to the late Msuya, a flamboyant, 43 year-old dealer who prior to his death owned several properties in Arusha.

Countless such attacks have taken place in and around Arusha in the past.

One of these happened on October 28, 2009, when another famous gemstone dealer called Justin Joseph was gunned down outside his residence at night when returning home. The gunmen took nothing from the victim.

The Tanzania Mineral Dealers’ Association (Tamida), a national body of gemstone dealers based in Arusha, has been cautious to comment on insecurity facing the industry.

But its chairman and a gemstone dealer operating here, Mr. Sammy Mollel, remarked after the recent killings:

“The government should ensure that the suspects are apprehended. But more importantly, it must investigate if there is a syndicate or network that aims to paralyse the industry.”

He warned that the gemstone sector could be in trouble if it was associated with violence. This happened in 2001/2002 when false reports reached the outside world that tanzanite minerals were funding global terrorism.

“Bloody minerals will not sell outside...we will be in big trouble...we will be seen to be embracing violence,” he said, without ruling out revenge, hatred or competition as the reasons behind attacks on gemstone dealers.

Mr. Mollel added that mineral dealers from Mererani have often been ambushed, robbed, killed or injured while carrying their minerals to the Kilimanjaro International Airport (KIA) or to a neighbouring country for export.

Although many dealers or small-scale miners venture into gemstone deals from humble beginnings, some grow rich overnight, driving expensive vehicles and owning posh houses and other properties.

With such great risks, many of them are known to arm themselves to the teeth for fear of being attacked by gangsters.

But this, too, has its repercussions, according to a business consultant based here and who spoke on condition of anonymity.

He said the whole tanzanite industry is not co-ordinated and that government laxity has allowed the influx of illegal aliens into the business either in Arusha or Mererani itself.

“Criminal gangs have taken advantage of the loopholes. If it has been easy to mine and smuggle the minerals outside the country, so it is easy to get a gun,” he told The Citizen on Sunday in an interview.

He wondered how some mineral dealers possessed up to four guns.
SOURCE: THE CITIZEN