The book described the plight of hundreds of thousands of bonded labourers, many of them paid in heroin, sharing syringes in dismal conditions, the gem pits becoming an epicentre for the country's HIV crisis.
[10] However, he courted controversy shortly after by co-authoring a piece in The Guardian that questioned the efficacy of Aung San Suu Kyi, the jailed leader of the Burmese pro-democracy movement.
Levy published evidence said to be derived from formerly closed Soviet-era archives that showed the room had been accidentally destroyed by the Soviet Red Army.
The book met with approval in the West where Peter Preston, former editor of The Guardian, described Levy and Scott-Clark as "two of our most formidable investigative journalists".
Published in 2007, it revealed how Abdul Qadeer Khan, a Pakistan metallurgist, stole nuclear secrets to build a bomb, before selling them around the world.
Serialized by The Sunday Times, the book was a "pick of the year" by The Washington Post, and a finalist for the Duke of Westminster's Medal for Military Literature, presented by the Royal United Services Institute.
[21] While some critics countered that residents forced from their land gained compensation and in some cases new homes and occupations, most of the evidence presented pointed to Asian.