Africa produces abundant gold, but a substantial share of its value escapes official channels. An Africanews report broadcast on October 22, drawing notably on work by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, highlights sharp gaps between physical flows and declared exports. These differences do not by themselves reveal every participant, but raise a central question: who captures value when metal escapes traceability and public rules?
According to the estimate cited in the report, 405 tonnes of gold shipped from Africa to the United Arab Emirates in 2022 may have entered flows through smuggling, representing 66.5% of these exports. This formulation must be treated cautiously: it estimates potentially undeclared flows, rather than providing a judicial count of illegal cargoes or a complete measure of all clandestine production on the continent.
A striking gap in Cameroon
Cameroon illustrates the potential scale of the discrepancy. According to the national mining company cited in the report, Dubai reportedly received 44 tonnes of Cameroonian gold between 2021 and 2025, while the country’s officially declared exports totaled just 148 kilograms. The report estimates that smuggling costs the state nearly CFA 2 trillion.
Comparing volumes highlights lost visibility across the commercial chain. It does not necessarily mean every tonne arriving in Dubai was mined in Cameroon or belonged to one fraud scheme. However, reported figures indicate that official declarations do not account for very substantial flows recorded by another institution. Establishing cargoes’ precise origin, value and tax treatment requires reconciling production, export, transit and destination-country import data.
The consequences for public authorities can be considerable: uncollected tax revenues, difficulty tracking mined volumes and reduced ability to verify mining rights and metal provenance. Collection and trading networks operating outside oversight mechanisms can benefit from opacity and differences between producer and international market prices. However, available information identifies neither a single beneficiary nor the precise margins captured at each stage.
Formalization goes beyond enforcement
In artisanal supply chains, combating undeclared flows must consider mining sites’ economic realities. Producers need accessible markets, understandable rules and buyers able to pay reliably. If official channels are expensive, distant or too slow, informal trade can remain more attractive even when the law provides severe penalties.
Côte d’Ivoire has toughened its response to illegal mining, with penalties of up to twenty years in prison according to the report. Yet clandestine activities continue expanding in several regions and environmental damage is substantial. The country has also established the Ivorian Precious Metals Company to improve oversight of precious metal supply and trade. This creates an institutional tool, but effectiveness will depend on its ability to register flows, monitor transactions and offer producers a viable legal route.
Official Ivorian production data shows the sector’s growth: output rose from 13 tonnes in 2012 to 51 tonnes in 2023. This makes it even more necessary to distinguish declared production growth, artisanal extraction and unauthorized activities. The goal is not merely to increase recorded volumes, but to improve knowledge of sites, worker safety and management of impacts on soils and waterways.
Refining more on the continent
In Burkina Faso, opening the first gold refinery in Ouagadougou forms part of a strategy to strengthen national control of the industry. The government has also adopted a new mining code and created two companies responsible for gold trade and sector oversight. Local processing can help retain more industrial activity and expertise domestically, but does not automatically guarantee that every batch’s origin is known.
A refinery needs regular, compliant feedstock. If upstream traceability is weak, local processing can shift opacity without removing it. For refining to strengthen economic sovereignty effectively, it must be accompanied by documented checks on producers, collectors, received volumes and final sales. It also matters to clarify who owns the two sector companies and which mechanisms ensure their public accountability.
Traceability and cooperation between countries
Cross-border gold trade requires a response extending beyond national borders. Authorities in producing, transit and destination countries must be able to compare data and investigate discrepancies. Reliable production registers, buyer due diligence mechanisms and simple export procedures can reduce gray areas. Regional initiatives can also improve customs cooperation and share information on operators and batches.
Marcena Hunter, head of extractive industries at the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, appears in the report on these channels. Her expertise recalls that illicit trade extends beyond clandestine extraction: it involves intermediaries, transport and markets capable of absorbing the metal. Responses must therefore target the entire chain, rather than mining sites alone.
The question of beneficiaries thus calls for a nuanced answer. Mining communities do not necessarily capture a fair share of value when production escapes oversight; states lose visibility and revenue; operators controlling purchasing, transport and resale channels can benefit from opacity. Changing this balance requires enforcement alongside legal commercial alternatives and credible oversight.
Measuring progress beyond announcements
The next indicators to monitor are smaller gaps between producing countries’ export data and importing countries’ figures, the share of artisanal gold integrated into legal chains, new institutions’ oversight capacity and tax benefits actually recorded. Fighting smuggling cannot be measured by sanctions alone: it must also make official channels more accessible and transparent.
Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire and Burkina Faso illustrate three complementary measures: strengthen flow oversight, structure precious metal trade and develop local refining. Their effectiveness will depend on consistency among these measures and their application at every link. Ultimately, the challenge is to make gold volumes extracted on the continent more visible and ensure associated revenues, jobs and industrial value benefit producing countries and communities more widely.