"West Africa is a place most Americans and their government haven.t paid much attention to war-torn, remote and desperately poor. But that might be about to change. War crimes investigators have uncovered evidence that al-Qaida terrorists -- before and after 9/11 -- were using West Africa as a hideout and a place to launder money." Former Liberia President Charles Taylor helped al-Qaida transfer their money into diamonds to avoid seisure by the US Government. "Diamonds are small and easy to conceal, and high-quality diamonds command and get very high prices the world over. A small bag of high quality diamonds can easily contain several million dollars of value, which is easy to transport, and very liquid at any destination around the world. These gems are invisible to normal airport scans, and don't trigger any of the typical alarms used by security stations everywhere. Short of an actual physical search, they are unlikely to be found." srcs: Blood Diamonds, By Greg Campbell, Dateline NBC investigation, DefenseWatch