The end of diamonds
From Hong Kong Dungeons to the Dying Rivers of Kasaï
Congo, November 2025
The first time I heard a diamond-industry professional talk about diamonds, the sound came out muffled. No wonder: my 12 cm stiletto was firmly planted on his tongue. The man was lying on the floor at my feet, handcuffed, hog-tied, hands and ankles behind his back. I might add that a thick wad of banknotes and a diamond necklace were proudly displayed on the coffee table he was chained to… Just another typical evening.
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James (let’s call him that; he pays handsomely for his real name to stay in the dark) is an immensely wealthy diamantaire whose fortune is built on natural stones ripped from the bowels of the earth. Well past sixty, he runs a discreet network that supplies jewellers on several continents with flawless gems, rough or polished, depending on the client.
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He is my most lucrative submissive. For almost ten years I have worked as a professional Dominatrix in Hong Kong, specialising in financial domination (“findom”): my clients hand me control of their wallets, sometimes their entire assets. James wires me five-figure sums every month so that I alone decide how he spends, invests, or (rarely) enjoys himself. He signs transfers blindfolded, literally at times. We travel the world together: yachts, casinos, dungeons, presidential suites. At the casino, if he wins, I take the winnings. If he loses, he pays me his losses a second time.
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For several years now James has watched his empire tremble under the onslaught of laboratory-grown diamonds: indistinguishable to the naked eye, ethical, 40 % cheaper, and devouring market share at terrifying speed. They already account for more than a third of sales in the United States and are conquering Europe and Asia fast. Natural diamonds are losing value quicker than a submissive who forgot to say “thank you”.
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So the deal between James and me is crystal clear: I go deep into the Kasaï, he funds the trip, and I bring back either exceptional stones that can’t be found anywhere else or the brutal truth about the future of natural diamonds, so he knows whether he should still bet millions… or resign himself to signing the rest of his life away to me as permanent tribute. I should mention that I’ve been travelling the Congo regularly since 2014 and already have two documentary films under my belt, in another life…
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The Kasaï: the region that paid for Kabila’s Kalashnikovs in ’97 and for the “African World War” that followed, millions dead. For twenty years Tshikapa, Kamonia and Mbuji-Mayi were the blood-soaked capitals of a Wild West where artisanal diggers, Lebanese traders and foreign companies carved up billions in gems… and left gaping craters in the red laterite.
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The golden age is over. Easy alluvial deposits exhausted, rivers scraped down to gravel, shafts collapsing or flooding. The once-proud MIBA is now a rusted carcass whose former concessions are overrun by thousands of illegal diggers. SACIM, the last Sino-Congolese industrial outpost, has seen production collapse and survives on life support. In the home region of the current president, Félix Tshisekedi, the grand revival plan he promised remains locked in a drawer.
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From the exhausted rivers of Lungundi to the clandestine pits of Mbuji-Mayi, past the ghost trading posts of Tshikapa and the obsolete machines of vast abandoned factories, I spent a full month walking through a dying ecosystem, stilettos shelved, notebook and recorder slung across my shoulder, camera never far away.
This is the first part of a major adventure narrative about the end of a myth that financed wars and revolutions, at the very moment the world quietly buries the Congolese “blood diamond”, told by a Mistress who holds the financial leash of a diamond magnate and who, somewhere in the heart of the Kasaï, may well be deciding the fate of his empire.
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The rest? India, Dubai, and Monaco. I now plan to travel to these three destinations to complete this twilight saga of the diamond:
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India, in 2025, has become the undisputed giant of diamond cutting and polishing, a titanic workshop where millions of invisible hands turn rough stones into dazzling jewels. In Surat, Gujarat’s mirage-city, the air hums with the endless drone of thousands of cutting and polishing shops: 80 % of India’s diamond exports come from there. In Mumbai, the Bharat Diamond Bourse beats like a secret stock exchange where Hasidic Jews, Gujaratis and Belgian dealers trade billions of carats. It is the vital artisanal and industrial lung keeping natural diamonds alive, the furnace where the red dust of Congolese laterite is transformed, at the price of an inevitable mutation.
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Dubai, in 2025, has established itself as one of the most dynamic and indispensable hubs in the global diamond industry, especially for natural stones. It is the beating heart of an ancient trade reinvented for the 21st century: redistribution and refining centre, the “gateway” for rough stones coming from Africa or India before they head to Europe, the US or Asia. More than a billion carats, rough and polished, have transited through Dubai in the last five years (179 million in 2024 alone). It is the logistical and financial pivot keeping natural diamonds breathing, a crossroads where opulence conceals the ethical and geopolitical stakes of a sector in full mutation.
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Monaco, where a Frenchman by birth lives in absolute luxury: neighbours include princes and oligarchs, the casino and yacht club a stone’s throw away. Officially retired, perpetually tanned, he remains the real king of a laterite kingdom, owner of his own diamond mine. He survived the Kamwina Nsapu storm (2016-2019) that destroyed half his concessions in Kamonia: militias, looting, dredgers burned, local partners vanished. He lost part of his investment but not all of it; the remaining shafts still operate, protected by discreet agreements and well-placed bribes, and the carats keep flowing toward Antwerp via Dubai.
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I contacted you before my trip to the Congo about this project. The Kasaï chapter is finished and ready for publication as a full-length immersive feature. But the investigation cannot stop at the Congolese border. It must continue in Surat and Mumbai, where thousands of artisans still fight to give the last natural stones a second life; in Dubai, where the big traders try to salvage what they can; and in Monaco, where a few still bask in the quiet opulence of their former triumphs. Three more stops, three complementary chapters, to close this saga of a world on the brink in style.
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The first text is ready. Shall we talk about the next ones?
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Here is a link to view the photographs and read the captions:
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And here is the link to download the HD versions:
https://www.swisstransfer.com/d/ecfa4710-da08-4ec8-b90b-b0d11cb2cf25