Gold smuggling

Illegal gold trade in Congo still benefiting armed groups, foreign companies

According to the UK-based organization, which campaigns against natural resource-related conflict and corruption, up to $17 million worth of gold produced by Chinese firm Kun Hou Mining went missing during a 12-month period between 2014 and 2015. The document adds that the metal was very likely to have been “smuggled out of Congo into international supply chains.”

Illegal gold trade has also benefitted Congo-based armed groups, which made as much as $25,000 a month in illegal taxes charged to artisanal diggers and received at least two assault rifles and $4,000 from the company over a two-year period, Global Witness says.

Global regulations in place since the beginning of the decade, such as the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development guidelines on responsible mineral-supply chains and the U.S. Dodd-Frank Act, have been more successful when it comes to limiting illegal trade of the so-called conflict minerals.