Millennium Star

WorldBrand briefing

AI supplement

Original synthesis to sit alongside the encyclopedia article below. Not part of Wikipedia; verify facts on Wikipedia when precision matters.

The Millennium Star is a legendary top-grade colorless pear-shaped flawless diamond, one of the largest certified D-color flawless white diamonds ever documented, famously associated with De Beers' millennium celebration events at the turn of the 21st century.

Key moments

1990777-carat rough diamond raw material is mined from the Mbuji-Mayi diamond mining region in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
1999After over two years of precision cutting and polishing by expert artisans in Antwerp, Belgium, the final 203.04-carat polished Millennium Star diamond is officially unveiled by De Beers
2000The Millennium Star is exhibited alongside a collection of rare fancy colored millennium diamonds at the Tower of London; a high-profile armed robbery attempt targeting the gem display is foiled by undercover Metropolitan Police officers

Symbolic and marketing significance for De Beers

As the centerpiece of De Beers' millennium-themed promotional campaign, the Millennium Star was framed as a tangible marker of the transition to the 21st century, reinforcing the company's decades-long dominant brand image as curator of the world's rarest, highest-value natural diamonds at the peak of its market influence. The gem was never offered for public sale, and its subsequent undisclosed private ownership transaction remains one of the most heavily speculated high-value diamond deals in modern industry records.

Cultural and security legacy of the 2000 foiled heist

The widely publicized failed armed robbery targeting the diamond exhibit at the Tower of London turned the little-known rare gem into a globally recognized pop culture reference for extreme, near-unattainable luxury. The incident also prompted sweeping security protocol overhauls for high-value gem and jewel public exhibits across the UK, including expanded hidden law enforcement deployment, anti-ram barriers, and upgraded transparent armored display cases for high-risk high-value artifacts.

value	Insured for £100,000,000

The Millennium Star is a diamond that was sold to an anonymous buyer in 2006, thought to be in Asia, by De Beers. At 203.04 carats (40.608 g), it is the world's second-largest known top-color (grade D, i.e., colorless), internally and externally flawless, pear-shaped diamond.

The diamond was discovered in the Mbuji-Mayi district of Zaire in 1990 in alluvial deposits; uncut, it was 777 carats (155.4 g). De Beers purchased it during the height of the country's Civil War in the early to mid-nineties. Workers of the Steinmetz Diamond Group took over three years to produce the classic pear form. The cutting was done using lasers.

It was first displayed in October 1999 as the centerpiece of the De Beers Millennium diamond collection. The collection also includes eleven blue diamonds totaling 118 carats (23.6 g) and The Heart of Eternity. They were displayed at London's Millennium Dome over 2000.

There was an attempt on 7 November 2000 to steal the collection from the Millennium Dome, but the Metropolitan Police discovered the plot and arrested the robbers before their escape.[1] Crime journalist Kris Hollington wrote a book called Diamond Geezers (ISBN 1843171228) about the attempted theft. The book also features a detailed history of the Millennium Star. The attempted robbery was featured in the 2025 Netflix documentary The Diamond Heist.[2]

The largest cut white (D) diamond by weight is the 1991 modified heart-shaped 273.85 carat Centenary Diamond.

External links

Some images of the diamond

References

Great Dome robbery foiled BBC News, 7 November 2000, retrieved 12 May 2010^
Lucy Mangan. The Diamond Heist review – Guy Ritchie's thrilling tale of the failed Millennium Dome jewel robbery The Guardian, 16 April 2025, retrieved 20 April 2025^