The Millennium Star is a famous diamond owned by De Beers

De Beers

De Beers is a family of companies that dominate the diamond, diamond mining, diamond trading and industrial diamond manufacturing sectors. De Beers is active in every category of industrial diamond mining: open-pit, underground, large-scale alluvial, coastal and deep sea...

. At 203.04 carats (40.608 g), the world's second largest known top-color

Diamond color

A chemically pure and structurally perfect diamond is perfectly transparent with no hue, or color. However, in reality almost no gem-sized natural diamonds are absolutely perfect. The color of a diamond may be affected by chemical impurities and/or structural defects in the crystal lattice...

 (D), internally and externally flawless, pear-shaped diamond.

The diamond was discovered in the Mbuji-Mayi

Mbuji-Mayi

Mbuji-Mayi serves as the capital of Kasai-Oriental Province in the south-central Democratic Republic of Congo. It is the third largest city in the country, following the capital Kinshasa and second largest city Lubumbashi but ahead of Kisangani and Kananga. The city is the DRC's third-largest,...

 district of Zaire

Zaire

The Republic of Zaire was the name of the present Democratic Republic of the Congo between 27 October 1971 and 17 May 1997. The name of Zaire derives from the , itself an adaptation of the Kongo word nzere or nzadi, or "the river that swallows all rivers".-Self-proclaimed Father of the Nation:In...

 (Democratic Republic of the Congo) in 1990 in alluvial deposits; uncut, it was 777 carats (155.4 g). It was purchased by De Beers during the height of the country's Civil War that took place in the early to mid-nineties. It took over three years for workers of the Steinmetz Diamond Group to produce the classic pear form. The actual 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

Heart of Eternity Diamond

The Heart of Eternity is a diamond measuring 27.64 carats , rated in color as "Fancy Vivid Blue" by the Gemological Institute of America. The Heart of Eternity was cut by the Steinmetz Group, who owned the diamond before selling it to the De Beers Group.The Heart of Eternity is a member of an...

. They were displayed at London’s Millennium Dome

Millennium Dome

The Millennium Dome, colloquially referred to simply as The Dome or even The O2 Arena, is the original name of a large dome-shaped building, originally used to house the Millennium Experience, a major exhibition celebrating the beginning of the third millennium...

 over 2000. There was an attempt on 7 November 2000 to steal the collection (see Millennium Dome raid

Millennium Dome raid

On 7 November 2000, a criminal gang attempted to steal the flawless Millennium Star diamond valued at over £200 million, from an exhibition at the Millennium Dome in Greenwich, London.The robbers had been under police surveillance before the heist...

), but the Metropolitan Police discovered the plot and arrested the robbers before their escape. 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 largest cut white (D) diamond by weight is the 1991 modified heart-shaped 273.85 carats (54.8 g) Centenary Diamond

Centenary Diamond

The De Beers Centenary Diamond is, at , the third-largest diamond to have been produced in the Premier Mine. The Centenary Diamond is rated in color as grade D color by the Gemological Institute of America, which is the highest grade of colourless diamond and is internally and externally flawless...

.