AS CHAIR of the All-Party Latin America Group, it was my job to host a meeting with Alvaro Uribe, President of Colombia, when he visited the House of Commons last year. He was then journeying around Europe as president-elect before taking up office. One of his many concerns, he said, was the illegal trade in emeralds from his country. Colombian emeralds are of high quality, and often sell for twice as much as emeralds from African countries, Russia or even Brazil. Terrorist groups and drug traffickers make huge sums of money from smuggling them.
Recently researchers at the National Centre…
