Ian Fleming’s interest in the subject of diamond smuggling grew out of researching his 1956 Bond novel Diamonds Are Forever, which drew him into the real-world workings of the diamond trade.
The book is based on roughly two weeks of interviews Fleming conducted in Tangier with John Collard, a former MI5 officer who appears in the book under the pseudonym “John Blaize.” Collard worked for the International Diamond Security Organisation (IDSO), a private counter-smuggling outfit headed by Sir Percy Sillitoe—the former head of MI5—and funded by the diamond company De Beers to combat the millions of pounds’ worth of gems being smuggled out of Africa each year. Through Collard’s accounts, Fleming relays a series of case studies and anecdotes about the IDSO’s operations, the methods used by smugglers, and the networks the organisation sought to infiltrate and dismantle.
While not a James Bond novel, The Diamond Smugglers reflects Fleming’s fascination with espionage and clandestine operations, and its subject—a former spy chief running a corporate intelligence network for the world’s dominant diamond cartel—offered a real-world counterpart to the intrigue of his fiction. The book received mixed reviews, with critics generally finding the subject matter compelling even where they felt the storytelling fell short of his Bond novels.
• Title: The Diamond Smugglers
• Author: Ian Fleming
• Type: Book
• Publisher: Jonathan Cape
• Publication time: November 29, 1957
• Publication place: United Kingdom