Gold prices have since 2009 stayed at historic highs. This has attracted the attention of cartels seeking to making profit. Photo/FILE
Investigations into a consignment of gold stolen from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have unearthed suspected smuggling syndicates in the middle-East and South Africa, signalling wider and sustained threats to economic and social stability in mineral rich nations in the region.
A joint investigative team pursuing leads on the alleged smuggling of some 2.5 tonnes of gold into Kenya with an estimated value of Sh9 billion ($113 million) has established that cartels in Dubai and South Africa could have aided the heist, raising concerns that illegal trade in the commodity remained widespread.
“Investigations have gone very far and there are several people we have investigated and interrogated already. More people are marked for investigation by our joint teams from Kenya and the DRC,” Internal Security minister George Saitoti told a media briefing in Nairobi on Friday.
Both South Africa and Dubai have elaborate gold exchange markets that make it easy for dealers to make a kill from shipments of the precious metal.
Statistics showed that South Africa was the number two world producer of gold and accounts for almost half of the global reserves of the precious metal.
DRC’s Mines minister was last week quoted as having said that the gold shipment that was being investigated was linked to the seizure of a plane carrying more than 400kg of the precious metal on February 4 in Goma, North Kivu province.
The consignment is believed to have been shipped to Kenya using fake documentation that was detected by surveillance teams in Nairobi.
Estimates by the DRC’s ministry of Mines showed that an estimated 80 per cent of the country’s gold exports are smuggled amid fears that proceeds from the illegal trade could be used to finance armed groups offering in the volatile eastern parts of the vast country.
A Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) officer who had been part of a team investigating the suspicious shipment was gunned down the previous weekend as he drove into his home within Nairobi’s South C estate.
DRC heavily relies on proceeds from mining even though years of internal strife affected the performance of the key sector.
Though there’s renewed activity in the mining sector an unclear legal framework, corruption, and a lack of transparency in government policy continue to dim the prospects of the industry.
This has created room for cartels to escalate illegal trade in gold, thus deny the country huge fortunes in economic gains.
Proceeds from the illegal trade have also been used to bankroll rebel groups in the eastern part of the country, further fuelling instability in the country.
“Illegal exploitations of minerals has been a source of conflict in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo,” Prof Saitoti claimed.
Gold prices have since 2009 stayed at historic highs as investors took refuge in commodities. This has attracted the attention of cartels seeking to profiteer from the boom in metal prices.
Kenya and the Democratic Republic of Congo announced on Friday that they had struck a deal to jointly monitor illegal gold trade between the two nations as they worked towards deepening their economic ties.
