Nasiru Adamu has a toxic relationship with terrorists operating in Zamfara, a state in northwestern Nigeria. In exchange for protection, he shovels the earth to dig up pieces of gold and gives the terrorists their share. Proud like a peacock, Adamu thinks his shady deal with the criminals terrorising his community brings him peace and gives him some prestige among his associates.
“I know most of the gangs and have a relationship with them,” he brags. “Although they have significant control over us and demand more from us than we prefer, we’ve learned to live with them.”
Adamu is just one of many young men colluding with terrorists, in desperate search for gold. The relationship is symbiotic, and it is a straightforward trade, he says. “We give them some fraction of the gold we dig, and they give us protection against their fellow criminals, who often come from elsewhere.”
While on the mining site in the Miyanchi area of the state, the terrorists would emerge dressed in military camouflage, with their faces shrouded in masks. “They often greet us as we work and ask for cigarettes and Indian hemp to smoke,” Adamu continues. They got so comfortable around each other that the terrorists began to open up about their criminal exploits. They shared accounts of attacks they coordinated with the miners, sometimes showing them bruises from their encounters with security agents and local vigilantes.
Scores of Nigerian villagers are trapped in indentured labour to terrorist groups, who rely on the gold produced by artisanal miners in northern states to buy weapons and fund other cross-border illicit activities. Chinese nationals also reportedly pay terrorist groups for access to mining reserves and buy gold from them.
This is often the nature of gold mining in Nigeria — coordinated by non-state armed groups and driven by demand from foreign actors. Aside from China, a significant portion of gold from Nigeria also ends in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), according to the country’s Minister of Solid Minerals Development. Despite a 2019 ban on mining activities in Zamfara, local miners continued operating with the encouragement and backing of terrorists. The country’s estimated gold reserves are worth billions of dollars, but little of that money gets into government coffers. Despite having solid mineral reserves worth $750 billion, the sector only accounts for about 2.6 per cent of government revenue. Nigeria is said to lose an estimated $9 billion to various illegal mining activities annually.
The story is the same in different parts of Africa.
In Sudan, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and their affiliates, responsible for several civilian massacres, fund much of their activities through gold smuggling operations. While Sudan’s official gold production has decreased significantly in recent years, exports from neighbouring countries such as Chad, Egypt, and Uganda have increased, with strong indications that they are funnelling Sudanese gold.
We see how lax regulatory frameworks and enforcement of laws contribute to illicit gold trades in places like South Africa and Kenya. In 2022, gold exports from South Africa more than doubled local production volumes, reflecting how smugglers are exploiting gaps in the country’s importation and exportation system. Kenya’s gold production industry is small, but it has also become notorious as a transit point for smuggled gold from countries like the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and South Sudan. Some have accused the Kenyan government of fuelling the conflict in Sudan by encouraging these smuggling operations.
In The Gambia, just like in Kenya, gold mining happens on a small scale. The country has, however, faced irregularities in the mining of other critical minerals. For example, the mining of mineral sand is done without transparency and without regard for the environment and the needs of small-scale farmers.
With the world markets in turmoil, the demand for gold as a haven for investors has reached record levels, recently breaching the $3,300 per ounce mark. This has suddenly made the business of illegal mining far more lucrative, with criminal syndicates now finding increasingly creative ways to launder gold into the formal economy of secondary countries.
Where does Sudanese gold end up?
When South Sudan became independent from Sudan in 2011, it left a gaping hole in the governmental revenue stream. Oil, almost exclusively located in South Sudan, was the main contributor to GDP. With rich gold deposits, Sudan pivoted and ramped up its mineral production, its economy becoming increasingly reliant on this industry. This led to gold production peaking between 2012 and 2017, reaching its highest level in 2015 with 107.3 tons and making Sudan the third-largest gold producer in Africa.
Gold smuggling has been a historical issue in Sudan. In the past six years, the country has seen a sharp decline in production rates, especially since the outbreak of war between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the RSF. Mohamed Taher Omar, Director General of the Sudanese Mineral Resources Company, has acknowledged that nearly half of all gold exports from Sudan are outside official channels.
Meanwhile, exports are increasing from immediate and regional neighbours, including Chad, Egypt and Uganda. The cover of war in Sudan allows the countries receiving the smuggled gold to reassign its origin to their own territory.
Our investigation identified three gold smuggling routes in the areas under RSF control in Darfur, including the states of North, West, and South Darfur. Through complex, armed smuggling operations, gold is transported directly to Chad and South Sudan, then to Kenya and Uganda as a transit area, and finally to the UAE as a final destination.
In northern and eastern Sudan, which are under the control of the Sudanese government, sources on the ground revealed several routes for smuggling gold to Egypt. The Abu Hamad area in River Nile State is one of its main centres, in addition to the city of Port Sudan via its airport to Uganda, and overland to Egypt via the Red Sea State, reaching the Shalateen area occupied by Egypt and the city of Aswan.
Sources confirmed to us that smuggling operations follow the same routes as human and arms smuggling, where smuggling networks from both Sudan and Egypt are involved. They are also managed smoothly and without the difficulties encountered in the Darfur region routes. Gold smuggling also occurs in South Kordofan, in areas controlled by the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N), led by Abdelaziz al-Hilu.
Amidst all this, the UAE has become a final destination for the purchase of Sudan’s smuggled gold, as well as gold from other parts of the continent. Dubai has become the second-largest exporter of gold in the world and the primary receiver of gold from Africa. With lax oversight measures for imported gold, the precious metal is a primary source of money laundering for criminal enterprises, with some of the gold ultimately ending up in countries like Switzerland, the UK and the US.
According to a SwissAid report published in 2022, 66.5 per cent of the gold the UAE imported from Africa was smuggled from African countries. The report revealed that the UAE contributes to gold laundering, as large quantities of gold gain a legal status once they enter the country. The report also indicated that smuggling on this scale not only causes a loss of tax revenue for countries but also raises concerns about the existence of an illicit economy. Legally, it can be exploited for money laundering, terrorist financing, and sanctions evasion.
A 2019 Reuters investigation detailed the UAE’s role as a major destination for gold smuggled out of Africa. The report highlighted the huge discrepancies between the figures announced by the UAE regarding gold imports from African countries and the export figures to the UAE published by these countries. In some cases, the discrepancy reached approximately $1.3 billion, suggesting large-scale smuggling activity or illegal trade.
The UAE Ministry of Economy has denied the country’s responsibility for the accuracy of other countries’ export data, stating that the UAE cannot be held accountable for export records issued by other governments.
South Africa’s ‘gold mafia’
In South Africa, once the largest gold producer in the world, the struggle to put gold smugglers behind bars attests to the complexity of the cross-border nature of the crime.
The country’s tax authority, the South African Revenue Service (SARS), has been locked in a tense legal battle with Andries Greyvensteyn, one of the alleged pillars of a so-called ‘Gold Mafia’ — a sprawling network accused of smuggling gold from Zimbabwe to Dubai via South Africa, exploiting holes in the financial system.
It is a battle which non-profit CorruptionWatch says reveals the “serious threat to South Africa’s financial system”, but raises the question of why the country’s prosecution service has not so much as raided any of the premises of the major players, let alone made any arrests.
With the price of gold now at record highs of more than $3,300 an ounce — having risen by 45 per cent over a year — there is much riding on whether the authorities can get a grip on smuggling, says Karam Singh, a consultant at CorruptionWatch.
“It’s immensely frustrating. We’ve seen so much exposed by investigative journalists about gold smuggling with the expectation that something would happen to stop it, but it’s almost like no one is paying attention,” he says.
For Singh, it speaks to deep-seated capacity issues. “The deeper issue is that there seems to be a problem across the continuum of our law enforcement authorities, from the detection, to the investigation and prosecution of gold smuggling. And there are no easy answers in fixing this,” he says.
But the imperative to address this has been heightened by the alarming trajectory of gold smuggling incidents.
An investigation by the Switzerland-based SwissAid found that at least 435 tonnes of African gold – worth more than $30bn – were smuggled off the continent in 2022. And these incidents had more than doubled from a decade earlier.
South Africa’s own statistics reveal disturbing discrepancies: the country exported 230 tonnes of gold in 2022, despite local production totalling just 103 tonnes, according to SwissAid. Imports reported by other countries into South Africa amounted to 138 tonnes.
The gaps arise partly because South Africa does not classify imported gold for refining and re-exporting as “official imports”; as a result, illicit gold can move through legitimate supply chains almost undetected. The Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime estimates that up to 30 tonnes of unlawful gold pass through South Africa annually, generating $2bn for syndicates exploiting this opacity.
Greyvensteyn, a 41-year-old trader who launched The Gold Kid Trading in Johannesburg’s gritty industrial town of Springs in 2005, was first raided by police in 2015. In 2021, he was sentenced for the “illegal dealing and illegal possession of unwrought precious metals”, and described by authorities as a “major role player in the gold refining industry”.
In February, the High Court in Pretoria ruled that SARS is justified in seizing his overseas assets and passport, pending a R3bn ($162 million) tax claim tied to the gold trading racket. “Given the allegations of fraudulent trade on the part of [Gold Kid Trading], seizure of [Greyvensteyn’s] foreign assets and a limit on his trade and ability to travel seems appropriate,” said the judge.
In one example of the alleged swindle, SARS claimed Gold Kid bought gold Krugerrands, which are exempted from VAT, melted them down, and then illegally claimed VAT refunds on the unwrought gold – a scheme which Greyvensteyn denied.
For critics, the tough ruling is a sign that the courts are finally getting serious about stemming the rise in illegal gold trading.
The ‘Gold Mafia’ case is one of the few instances where the door has been prised open to reveal how the supply chain works, shining a light on how South Africa’s ageing gold infrastructure, once the engine of its economy, has become a gateway for the continent’s booming illicit gold trade.
The problem begins with illegal miners – mostly undocumented foreigners from Zimbabwe, Mozambique, and Lesotho – who risk their lives entering abandoned mines in South Africa in search of leftover traces of gold.
“If you’re able to manage that,” says Peter Bishop, a former member of the Special Investigating Unit (SIU), “you will make a huge dent in the illicit trading of gold from a South African point of view.”
First, violent criminal gangs oversee the operations, moving the precious metal to buyers, including licensed dealers who exploit regulatory loopholes. Then, the gold passes to exporters using front companies, such as scrap metal and second-hand dealers, before reaching largely unregulated international intermediaries and refiners.
While work has been done to improve border controls, corruption is pervasive and results in many undocumented foreigners, when they are caught on illegal mines, simply returning to the country and picking up where they left off.
“It’s a massive problem,” Bishop says. “South Africa is known as the gold rush for the rest of Africa because there are so many abandoned mines.”
The Zama Zamas (a phrase which, loosely translated from Zulu, means “those who try”) brave treacherous environments with little or no safety gear, frequently poisonous gases and sudden flooding. They work underground for weeks, even months on end.
Efforts to crack down on Zama Zamas have had mixed results, too.
Operation Vala Umgodi, a police-led initiative launched in late 2023 to ‘close the hole’, led to over 20,000 arrests and the seizure of millions in cash, weapons and mining equipment.
Yet the humanitarian cost of ‘closing the hole’ and starving out illegal miners has been immense. At the derelict Buffelsfontein mine in Stilfontein, which is majority controlled by a Chinese company, hundreds of Zama Zamas refused to surface even after food and water supplies were cut off, resulting in the recovery of at least 87 bodies.
This illustrates that stamping out illegal gold mining won’t be as easy — or as uncomplicated — as many would wish.
But as much as the problem begins in the depths of abandoned mines, this is a racket which goes all the way to the continent’s largest boardrooms, too.
In particular, one of South Africa’s small banks, Sasfin, was implicated as it allegedly facilitated R8.2 billion ($443 million) in cross-border money laundering involving many of the ‘Gold Mafia’ characters, such as Zimbabwe tobacco baron Simon Rudland.
Sasfin partly fessed up. It admitted that “a group of Sasfin employees in the foreign exchange business unit had colluded with the implicated clients to enable the circumvention of exchange control and anti-money laundering regulations, as well as to subvert our system of internal controls”. It said all these bankers had been fired, and criminal cases opened.
This is a significant case, representing the first time a major bank has been implicated to this extent in cross-border money laundering. More ominously, with the gold price at record highs, you can expect more illicit activity over the next few years.
The issue isn’t only an African one, says Bishop, who has more than 25 years of experience investigating smuggling networks and earned recognition as an expert by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. “We can have the best laws, but if the rest of the world, where our product is going to, is not enforcing it, we’ll never stop it,” he says.
South Africa, with a cash-strapped and technically ill-equipped police service, struggles at the best of times; when you consider that many countries on the continent have no laws against holding unwrought gold, the task becomes far harder.
Bishop says it is only recently that companies and countries have started taking the illicit trading of gold and other precious metals seriously, partly because this trade is being used to fund terrorism, and mines are losing money. “It’s affecting the commercial environment because they’re stealing the mines’ rotten and losing product, tons of it at a time,” he says.
Kenya as a transit hub
Kenya has long played an outsized role in East Africa’s gold trade despite having only minimal domestic production. In recent years, it has become a major transit hub for both legal and illicit gold, helped by its porous borders and international transport links.
Artisanal gold from unstable countries such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and South Sudan is often routed through Nairobi en route to markets abroad through smuggling networks that deprive governments of revenue, and which also fuel armed conflicts and organised crime across the region.
Since the late 1990s, armed groups and militias in eastern DRC have mined gold to finance conflict. Much of that gold is smuggled out of the DRC through Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and Kenya. The Organised Crime Index notes that smuggled minerals that originate in the DRC are trafficked through Kenya for ‘legitimisation’ before being sold to foreign markets as Kenyan products. Similarly, gold from Tanzania and South Sudan’s newly opened mines increasingly flows into Nairobi’s markets rather than through Juba or Addis Ababa.
Nairobi-based traders have long dealt in DRC gold. Investigators found Kenyan gold dealers flying privately to Eastern DRC and Uganda in 2020 to stockpile gold, even during COVID-19 lockdowns. Once gold reaches Kenya, it often crosses an airport or port under a veneer of legitimacy (e.g. as “mining samples” or bonded goods). The United Arab Emirates is by far the largest destination, since Dubai’s gold souk offers weak oversight and cash deals.
The illicit gold trade has serious consequences for Kenya and the region. Economically, governments lose tax and royalty revenue, with uncollected duties and duties on smuggled gold likely running into tens of millions of dollars annually. By diverting capital to illegal networks, the trade also depresses legitimate mining investment and fuels corruption. UN investigators have found that corrupt officials on both sides of the Kenya-DRC border help smuggling rings bypass inspections. The Organised Crime Index similarly warns that Kenyan politicians and police have been linked to mineral trafficking.
Security-wise, illicit gold enriches armed groups and criminal gangs. In eastern DRC, the proceeds finance militias and perpetuate armed conflict, with corrupt state actors also profiting from the trade.
In Sudan and South Sudan, for example, gold is a known patronage and war-funding tool for some of the generals involved in the civil war. By serving as a regional export hub, Kenya inadvertently helps perpetuate these conflicts.
Nigeria’s miners learning to work with terrorists
Rural terrorists and insurgent groups play an outsized role in Nigeria’s northwestern region, including Zamfara State, which has massive gold mining sites. Here, young men and their communities are locked in a symbiotic relationship with armed groups, some of whom employ them for the perilous work of digging gold mining tunnels while others look to rob and even kidnap them.
“They join us in almost everything we do, even though they do not put in the labour themselves,” said Aminu Bashar, a local miner.
His worst experience with the terrorists was when he realised that he now works for the same men who attacked and killed his people back in his village in December 2021. “But they don’t recognise me even though I once escaped after they kidnapped me,” he says. “I have no choice but to work with them; this is a life I have chosen, and I can’t back down now.”
Salisu Gado, another miner, describes what a day on the site looks like, especially with the terrorists around, armed to the teeth. He has worked on mining sites for years as a labourer, burying his head in holes to dig out gold pieces.
“Once I have my tools, the next thing is to go to the site. One has to register their presence and identify the group they would work with so that the armed terrorists would be informed and would not look at one as a spy,” Gado says. When he arrives at the Kawaye mining site, a few kilometres away from the Sumke forest camp, where he currently works as a local miner, he observes where other miners are digging out gold and then chooses a portion to start digging from any available spaces.
“At that point, a terrorist member will visit the space and guard you against his aggressive fellows from a different camp.”
As the miners dig deeper, they pick up what they find and verify if it is the “precious stone”. Sometimes, the locals said, Chinese expatriates bribe the terrorists to allow hitch-free mining activities, especially when they are physically present. In a mining site in the Kisami village of the Bukuyum local government area, for instance, the foreign merchants come once in a while to monitor mining operations, under the protection of the terrorists.
Local and international media have extensively reported allegations of Chinese nationals engaging in illegal mining activities, with some reporting that these expatriates sometimes bribe terrorists to let them have free days on different mining sites. In 2023, for example, the Times of London revealed that Chinese nationals in the mining sector are funding terrorist groups in parts of Nigeria to secure access to the country’s mineral reserves. The report, substantiated by an SBM Intelligence research, highlighted how militant groups boast on social media that they are so powerful that Chinese workers wishing to operate in their areas must pay them “rent”.
Another category of people enmeshed in the illegal mining trade in Zamfara is older men, typically in their 40s or 60s. They act as gold dealers, preferring not to engage in the physically demanding and risky mining work. Instead, they negotiate agreements with younger men willing to take on the risks in exchange for payment. They often engage in transactions with rural terrorists. These armed groups typically demand large sums of money from dealers in exchange for confiscated gold. In some instances, they exchange guns for gold with these warlords. The dealers sometimes offer daily allowances to the local miners, who dig out gold. Paying amounts ranging from ₦1,000 to ₦5000 ($0.6 to $3) daily, a dealer takes whatever the miner digs out of the holes.
Shady mining operations in the Gambia
With the Atlantic Ocean lapping at its pristine beaches, the veneer of tranquillity of Tujareng, an hour’s drive from Gambia’s capital, Banjul, is quickly shattered by the pockmarked landscape.
Topsoil, treelines and sand dunes have been decimated and removed as mining operations here hunt for mineral sand for export, primarily to China, exact their toll. Our journalists found that the mining company responsible for this has close ties to President Adama Barrow and the ruling party.
Largely ignoring environmental guidelines, mining activities have intensified coastal erosion, accelerating nearby communities’ vulnerability to sea level rise. Women, the primary subsistence farmers in this region, have had up to 70 per cent of their income decimated as a result.
Repeated studies have shown that mining, which is either done on agricultural lands or the beach, affects both the tourism industry and women subsistence farmers (described locally as gardeners) whose rice fields and vegetable farms continue to be destroyed.
Barrow took the reins in the Gambia on a promise of anti-corruption and reform in January 2017. But in October of that year, his government, without any public tender, awarded a mining licence to GACH Mining, a company created only three months earlier and with deep ties to Barrow’s National People’s Party and the president himself. GACH had no previous record of mining operations.
GACH CEO is 45–year–old Surahata Jawara, a Gambian businessman who has risen to prominence following the change of government in 2017. In 2024, Jawara was conferred a Gambian of the Year award by The Standard newspaper. When contacted for comments, GACH said that when it acquired the license in October 2017, its CEO, Abubakary Jawara, the father of Surahata, had no relationship with the president or its political party, which was formed in December 2019.
Contrary to this claim, the relationship between the Gambian leader and GACH’s CEO started in 2017, even before his company was issued a license. In August 2017, about two months before GACH was issued a mining license, Jawara was appointed by the President as an Honorary Consul General of Gambia to Guangzhou, China. According to his appointment letter dated August 23, 2017, his task was to promote and protect the country’s interests in China.
In their 2018 audit, the National Audit Office found that contrary to the President’s claims, the awarding of the mining contract to GACH did not follow due process. The country’s supreme audit body said the contract was single-sourced without the approval of the Gambia Public Procurement Authority.
“Discussion with officials at the Geology Department revealed that GACH mining company has been issued a license to begin mining black sand at the Kartong, Sanyang and Batokunku beaches,” noted auditors in the 2018 audit of government accounts published in 2021. “We noted with concern that the said license was issued without subjecting it to tender. There is a high risk that the license was awarded based on favouritism.”
There is little transparency over mining operations in the Gambia. Neither the contracts nor the revenue from them is publicly available, even upon Access to Information (ATI) requests to the Ministry of Energy and Mines and the Geology Department.
In 2020, a former energy minister, Fafa Sanyang, told journalists that the government has a 60 per cent share in the net profit of the mining operations. But not only are the records kept from the public and the journalists, it appears they are kept from the government, too, calling into question how they determine their share of net profits. In 2019, the Auditor General said the government was solely relying on GACH to verify the number of shipments made.
“There is a risk that the proportion of revenue remitted to the government of the Gambia is understated since no control is in place to monitor or confirm shipment,” said the auditors.
There has been a one–time declaration in the budget in 2022 when D154.8m ($2.1 million) was recorded as proceeds from mineral mining. The records obtained from the Gambia Ports Authority and Gambia Revenue Authority show that GACH exported about 4,417 containers of mineral sand between 2017 and 2024, an estimated 119,285 tons of mineral sand.
Former minister Sanyang told lawmakers in March 2019 that a ton of black sand was being sold at $150, though a former director of the mining company, Alhagie Sillah, said they were selling a ton at $200. The value of raw mineral declared to tax authorities, however, places the cost per ton at D1,953 ($26). Based on these prices, our journalists estimate a total revenue ranging from $17.9 million to $23.9 million, which is many times higher than what the government has ever declared as revenue from mining.
“There’s very little transparency when it comes to revenues collected by government agencies,” said economist Lamin Dibba, the executive director of the Centre for Budget and Macroeconomic Transparency.
It is the people who suffer
While gold dealers and smugglers smile to the bank, the adverse effects of their operations are felt by the miners who are exploited and often work in dangerous conditions. Mining activities also tend to devastate natural resources such as land and water, which local communities depend on for their livelihoods.
Miners in Nigeria usually work without adequate protection. Many times, they get their heads smashed in the hole; the earth they shovel to get gold also swallows them, killing them instantly or injuring them.
Bashir Hassan, one of the miners, narrated how he narrowly escaped death after the earth swallowed him and his friends on a mining site. They had buried their heads into the dark hole to dig out gold when the clay suddenly cracked, covering the miners’ bodies and trapping them beneath the earth. Bashir managed to pull himself out with some virgin gold.
As he wept helplessly, hoping to see someone around to assist in saving his friends’ lives, Kachalla Baleri, a notorious terrorist leader, declared wanted by the Nigerian government, suddenly appeared with his criminal gang, heavily armed. The terrorist was surveilling the mining site when he saw Bashir sobbing amid tears. He took the raw gold he had gotten from the dug hole before offering to help them. The terror leader ordered his boys to rescue the trapped men, but two of them had died before they could be rescued, while two others were unearthed from the hole, breathing heavily and badly injured.
Sometimes, the terrorists fail to protect the local miners from rival terror groups targeting them for attacks to take over the mining sites. Dozens of miners have been killed on site by rival terrorists, with their criminal masters unable to protect them. When the miners are caught off guard, the terrorists covering them usually flee the scene, leaving the unprotected labourers to die in cold blood.
Some terrorists are also victimising the local miners they are supposed to protect, extorting them and daring them to do their worst. A local miner, who simply asked to be described as Dauda, told HumAngle that he now works for the same group of terrorists ravaging his community.
In many communities in The Gambia that host mining sites, local farmers are reeling from the aftermath of the operations. Coastal communities like Batokunku, Brufut, Kartong, Sanyang, and Tujerend all face similar environmental devastation due to decades of mining of both mineral sand and construction sand. An area between two mining sites in Banko now lies dry and barren as mining operations have displaced a lot of women farmers.
“This farm means everything to us. This is how we fund our children’s school fees and take care of our families,” says Amie Jabang, a small-scale farmer in Sansanding, who is her family’s breadwinner. “The mining has destroyed a lot of gardens. They have ruined all the roads leading to our gardens. During the rainy season, this road is filled with stagnant water. You cannot even walk to access your garden. It becomes flooded. A lot of animals like snakes and crocodiles migrate from the sea to our gardens, destroying our rice fields.”
This story was jointly produced by five newsrooms: Africa Uncensored in Kenya, Beam Reports in Sudan, Currency in South Africa, HumAngle in Nigeria, and The Republic in the Gambia. It was supported by Code for Africa and funded by Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ).