DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — Billions of dollars in gold are smuggled out of Africa each year, and most of it ends up in the United Arab Emirates, where it is refined and sold to clients around the world, according to a report released Thursday.
More than $30 billion worth of gold, or more than 435 metric tons, was smuggled out of the continent in 2022, according to a report published by Swissaid, a Switzerland-based aid and development group. The main destinations for African gold were the United Arab Emirates, Turkey and Switzerland.
The authors of the report said they aimed to make the African gold trade more transparent and put pressure on industry players to do more to make gold supplies traceable and supply chains more accountable.
“We hope this will improve the living conditions of local people and the working conditions of artisanal miners across Africa,” Yvan Schulz, one of the report’s authors, told The Associated Press.
The report found that between 32% and 41% of gold produced in Africa is undeclared. In 2022, Ghana was the largest gold producer in Africa, followed by Mali and South Africa.
The United Arab Emirates was by far the top destination for gold smuggling, the report said, with about 405 metric tons of undeclared production from Africa ending up there. Over a ten-year period between 2012-2022, this amounted to 2,569 metric tons of gold, worth approximately $115 billion. The report said the gap between the UAE’s imports and exports from African countries has widened over the years, meaning the amount of gold smuggled out of Africa appears to have increased over the past decade. For example, it expanded from 234 metric tons in 2020 to 405 in 2022.
Switzerland, another major buyer of African gold, imported about 21 metric tons of undeclared gold from Africa in 2022, the report said. The actual number could be much higher if African gold imported via third countries was taken into account, the report said, but once the gold is refined, it is almost impossible to trace its flow to its final destination.
The United Nations Commodity Statistics Database, which contains detailed import and export statistics, shows that Switzerland is the main buyer of gold from the UAE. “Procuring gold from the UAE is very risky,” the report said, describing the difficulty of ascertaining the origin of refined gold.
An official from the UAE government’s media office said the country has taken significant steps to address concerns about gold smuggling and the dangers it poses. The continued growth of the UAE’s gold market reflects the international community’s confidence in its processes, the official said, responding on behalf of the country’s press office without further details.
“The UAE remains steadfast in its efforts to combat gold smuggling and ensure the highest standards of transparency and accountability in the gold and precious metals sector,” the official said.
The Swiss government said it was aware of the challenges of identifying the origin of gold and had introduced measures to prevent illegal flows.
“Switzerland is and remains committed to improving the traceability of goods flows, the transparency of statistics and the quality of controls,” said Fabian Maienfisch, spokesman for the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs.
The report compared export data from African countries with import data from non-African countries, along with other calculations, to extrapolate the data. Among his recommendations, he called on African states to take steps to formalize artisanal and small-scale mining and strengthen border controls. It also called on non-African states to publish the identity of the countries of origin and destination countries of imported gold and cooperate with the authorities to detect illicit gold flows.
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Associated Press writer Jamey Keaten in Geneva contributed to this report.