The Deadly Global Gold Rush: How to Stop the Illicit Mining and Trade That Fuel War and Repression

May 19, 2025 | Sasha Lezhnev and John Prendergast
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Every year, illicit gold worth more than $30 billion flows across the globe, including gold originating in conflict zones and authoritarian states. Much of it is smuggled to gold-trading centers such as Dubai or Hong Kong before silently entering the global market. Unlike drug trafficking, the trade in illicit gold does not register to many in the West as an emergency because its primary victims are not in wealthy countries. But this trade is underwriting deadly crises around the world. It is financing both sides of the Sudanese civil war; the authoritarian regime of Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela; transnational criminal