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Antwerp diamond raids bring in €50m gem haul

Thomas Biesheuvel, Aaron Kirchfeld and April Roach /Bloomberg

Raids across more than a dozen properties around the Belgian diamond enclave of Antwerp seized about €50m of the precious stones in an attempt to recover debts tied to the collapse of one of the country’s largest traders.

The raids were conducted by bailiffs and police in January in a bid to recover debts once owed by Eurostar Diamond Traders to Standard Chartered, people familiar with the matter said, asking not to be identified discussing confidential information.

A Carlyle Group-backed fund, which acquired the claims from the UK bank as part of its distressed debt business, worked with Grant Thornton on the asset recovery, which was done in accordance with Belgian courts, the people said.

Eurostar, once one of the biggest buyers of rough diamonds, collapsed into bankruptcy in 2019 after borrowing heavily from Standard Chartered. The bank ran an ill-fated venture offering trade finance to diamond dealers that left it facing losses of about $400m. A public hearing in Antwerp took place on Thursday.

Eurostar was founded in the late 1970s by Kaushik Mehta. He did not respond to messages seeking comment. Representatives for Carlyle, Grant Thornton and Standard Chartered declined to comment.

After the global financial crisis, Standard Chartered spotted an opportunity to lend to the so-called diamond midstream, where mostly family-run businesses buy rough stones from miners such as De Beers before cutting and polishing them into the sort of stones sold in jewellery shops.

Standard Chartered quickly built a $3bn loan book to the industry, with Eurostar becoming one of its biggest clients. At the time, Eurostar was one of De Beers’ 80-or-so handpicked customers.

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2023-02-03T08:00:00.0000000Z

2023-02-03T08:00:00.0000000Z

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