“Nothing comes from diamonds”. From rubies, however, can arise disputed mines, military control and supply chains that are difficult to follow to the end. Yet, the new giant ruby found near Mogok, in Myanmar, still manages to hypnotize: it weighs 2.2 kilograms, measures 11,000 carats and has that purplish red that alone is enough to trigger the word “luck”. Only this luck, this time, must be looked at carefully. Because a stone can be rare, natural, even magnificent, and still come from a country where gems have been a source of money, power and conflict for decades.
The gem would be the second largest by weight ever found in the country, after the 21,450-carat ruby discovered in 1996. It weighs about half of that record, but is considered potentially more precious due to its color, quality, moderate transparency and highly reflective surface. It has a red-purple hue with yellowish nuances, a high chromatic quality, the type of material that makes the eyes of gemologists and investors shine before even talking about numbers.
Then there’s Mogok. The name, in the world of precious stones, has an almost mythological weight. For centuries they have called it the Valley of the Rubies, a definition that sounds romantic as long as it remains far from the mines. From those mountains come rubies, sapphires and other gems, in a territory where geology has built wealth and human beings have transformed it into power, trade, control. And today, in front of a giant ruby from Myanmar, stopping at the wonder would be comfortable. Too comfortable.
The disputed valley
According to the reconstruction of APMyanmar produces “up to 90%” of the world’s rubies, especially in the Mogok and Mong Hsu areas. It is a much cited estimate, to be handled with caution: Global Witness, a British organization that has been investigating the relationship between natural resources, corruption and conflicts for years, recalled that the Burmese share of the world market was estimated at around 90% before the rise of Mozambique as a rival supplier since 2009, while today the data tells more about the historical weight of Myanmar than a simple and stable snapshot of the current market.
The Mogok territory has recently seen intense fighting in the Burmese civil war. In July 2024 the area came under the control of the Ta’ang National Liberation Army, an armed force linked to the Palaung minority; control later returned to the Burmese military through a Chinese-brokered ceasefire.
For this reason, the Burmese gem supply chain has been observed for years by human rights organizations, governments and international bodies. The issue concerns the role of natural resources in financing military governments and armed actors.
Sanctions on gems
In 2021, the US Treasury Department sanctioned Myanma Gems Enterprise, the state enterprise that controls the country’s gem sector – a key economic asset for the Burmese military regime.
Then the United Kingdom and the European Union also arrived. In the British debate, the gem trade has been described as a billion-dollar industry and a major source of revenue for the military junta. After the coup on February 1, 2021, Brussels strengthened measures against people, entities and companies linked to the army.
The United Nations had already reported it before the coup: those economic ties had to be severed. In 2022, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights called for limiting the Burmese military’s access to revenue, foreign exchange and arms supplies.
The environmental and human price in the Valley of the Rubies
The question, however, does not only concern who collects. It also concerns what remains on the territory after extraction. Mogok is often described as a legendary valley, almost a fairytale mine, but a study of the area describes a much less clean landscape: open-air activities, use of mechanized vehicles, alterations to the terrain, landslides, flooding, deforestation and water pollution. The research also points to problems in waste management and the absence of systematic plans for mine dumps and wastewater.
The point must be kept with caution: we do not know from which mine this giant ruby comes, nor who physically extracted it. Precisely for this reason the information void weighs even more. When traceability is missing, not only a commercial detail is missing: the possibility of understanding which piece of territory was excavated, which communities were involved, which environmental controls were applied and what damage was left out of the photograph of the gem is missing.
Myanmar had introduced environmental impact assessment procedures to strengthen protections in the mining sector, but the state’s ability to enforce them was highlighted as a critical issue. A review of the gem sector already reported years ago that the expansion of mining activities was producing serious impacts on the local environment and biodiversity, with problems of governance, monitoring and enforcement of rules.
Thus the ruby ceases to be just a rare stone. It also becomes a series of very concrete questions: How much earth was moved to find it? How much water was dirtied? How many steps remained invisible before his red card arrived in front of the leaders of Burmese power?
An uncomfortable beauty
Global Witness has called on jewelers to stop buying gems from Myanmar. In the report dedicated to the so-called “conflict rubies”, the organization describes Burmese rubies as an important source of financing for one of the most brutal regimes in the world and links the gem sector to a system of power also built on the predation of natural resources.
The same investigation highlights a difficult transition for the entire luxury industry: under current conditions, according to Global Witness, companies dealing in gems should urgently review their supply chains to avoid financing conflict, corruption or state repression in Myanmar. The report also mentions companies that have excluded Burmese gems from their supplies, a sign that a different choice is possible when traceability becomes insufficient or too risky.
For those who buy a jewel, all this may seem very distant. A stone is beautiful, it costs, it shines, it is set. The word “natural” alone says little. The ruby is huge, the wound around it too. If we don’t know its history, the problem doesn’t disappear: it just changes the window.
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