US jewellery firm resumes Tanzanite sales

New rules govern the mining of Tanzanite

Zales, the owner of some of the leading US shopping mall jewellery stores, has become the first retailer to lift the boycott of the gemstone Tanzanite.

Zales, Tiffany and QVC - who make up the world's largest market for Tanzanite - stopped selling the gemstone last year after The Wall Street Journal claimed proceeds from its sale were funding supporters of Osama bin Laden.

No one, including Zales, has been able to substantiate any ongoing link between terrorist and tanzanite

Zales

Tanzania, where the US embassy in the then-capital Dar es Salaam was bombed in 1998, claims the boycott has damaged its mining industry and international reputation.

Zales' decision comes after the east African nation introduced new rules to regulate the Tanzanite trade, and track gems from the mines to the display case.

A US State Department spokesman in February said there was no evidence that any terrorist organization was currently using Tanzanite to finance terrorism.

US consumers buy about 80% of the global supply of Tanzanite, a blue gemstone found only in a tiny patch of graphite rock in Tanzania.

No evidence

Under the Tanzanian rules, miners would be licensed and gems would be certified to ensure that only legally mined and exported gemstones were sold.

No evidence of terrorist funding has been found

The rules were announced in February after a meeting in Tucson, Arizona, between representatives of the jewellery industry and Tanzania.

"No one, including Zales, has been able to substantiate any ongoing link between terrorist and Tanzanite," said the company which operates Zales Jewellers, Bailey Banks & Biddle, Gordon's Jewellers and other chains.

Douglas Hucker, executive director of American Gem Trade Association, and chairman of a panel that worked on the Tucson agreement, said "there might have been attempts made" by terrorists to sell the gem, but no one has found evidence they succeeded.