John Collard
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![]() ![]() ![]() (solicitor, spook) | |
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Born | John Ambrose Collard 1 January 1913 Whitechapel, London |
Died | 23 July 2002 (Age 89) Rye, Sussex |
Alma mater | Keble College (Oxford) |
John Collard was a British solicitor and former MI5 operative who went on to become an agent of the International Diamond Security Organisation (IDSO) which was set up to tackle diamond smuggling, using ambushes, death squads and torture.[1]
Using the alias "John Blaize", Collard contacted Ian Fleming and met him in Morocco to reveal how IDSO had infiltrated and toppled the “million-carat network”―the world’s most notorious diamond smuggling ring.
The result of their conversations was a series of newspaper articles about the "million carat network", a book, "The Diamond Smugglers", and the James Bond novel "Diamonds are Forever" (1956).[2]
Related Document
Title | Type | Publication date | Author(s) | Description |
---|---|---|---|---|
Document:De Beers to abandon cartel | Article | 30 May 2000 | Dan Atkinson | De Beers hit a high point in profit terms in the boom year 1989-90, but the following decade was to cost its shareholders billions of dollars. The break-up of the Soviet Union brought a flood of illicit diamonds on to the market, as did the civil war in Angola. In abandoning the CSO diamond cartel, Managing Director Gary Ralfe hopes to use De Beers' dominant position to persuade everyone in the industry to spend much more on marketing. |
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