At least not until now.Īssuming the ITC might be reluctant to the talk to the press, we asked a Dutch-based trader, Tyson Edgon, to approach someone calling himself Mr. Not a single diamond trader or consumer holding a numbered natural GIA certificate and a laser-inscribed diamond will ever suspect that his or her diamond may be synthetic. But, what if out in the market, there are thousands o r tens of thousands of synthetic diamonds inscribed with GIA certificate numbers corresponding to genuine GIA natural diamond reports? This scenario would not only be “the beginning of the end” of trust in both diamonds and diamond traders, but also catastrophic for the GIA and its reputation. We thought it must just have been a mistake. Could the GIA really “miss” up to 10,000 CVD carats a week and mistakenly issue natural diamond reports for them? Not in a million years. What makes the statement ridiculous, however, is the volumes this seller was offering. Is this plausible? Unlikely? Impossible? We have learned over the years that nothing is impossible. Lo and behold, the ITC website gave the inexplicable explanation in bold letters: “Some of the CVD Diamonds when sent to Laboratories get passed as Natural diamonds, and hence they can be provided with GIA natural diamond certificates.” We believed that no bona fide diamond buyer could be that naive, and browsed the website of the seller (seeking an explanation. Our first reaction upon receiving the Alibaba Trade Alert directly to our inbox was to think that the combination of synthetic stones with a GIA natural diamond report was a contradiction in terms. It is that unparalleled global marketing power that enables innocuous, almost anonymous, unscrupulous entities to wreak havoc in the diamond world.Ĭatastrophic Reputational Consequences for GIA “Our proven ability to deliver an unparalleled consumer experience and to help merchants attract, engage and retain buyers will drive future growth in our core business,” he added. The publicly traded Alibaba Group “reached a milestone of over 400 million annual active buyers,” said Alibaba’s CEO Daniel Zhang in his most recent quarterly review.
In response to our queries about this offer, GIA Senior Vice President Tom Moses said: “We will immediately investigate this fraudulent use of our certificates.” If this was true, it might easily be the most serious marketing fraud in the diamond business ever. Priced at $100 per carat and above, each and every one of these CVD diamonds (i.e., pieces over 0.15 carats) carried a genuine GIA natural diamond report. The offer was concrete and specific: the seller, the International Trading Corporation (ITC), claimed to have the ability to supply 10,000 carats of CVD diamonds a week. Made on behalf of a New Delhi-based supplier of synthetic diamonds and gem simulants, the offer is akin to selling a fake Rolex watch with a genuine Rolex certificate of authenticity and guarantee.
This offer is a blatant – a nd ostensibly fraudulent – attack on the Gemological Institute of America’s (GIA) product integrity.
(IDEX Online News) – Alibaba, the leading online internet platform for global wholesale trade, has sent special Trade Alerts by email to millions of potential diamond buyers, offering CVD Lab-Grown Diamonds with GIA Natural Diamond Certificates as one of its Top Products of the Week.
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