Bloomberg Investigation Maps How Sanctioned and Smuggled African Gold Flows Into the UAE as Gold Nears Record...

Gold is near record highs. A Bloomberg investigation maps how sanctioned and smuggled African gold flows into the UAE, the dominant destination for the continent's gold.
The UAE's reported African gold imports jumped $43 billion in a single year:
- Mali added $11 billion
- Egypt added $7 billion
- Chad, Ethiopia, and Uganda added billions more
Those totals dwarf what these countries actually mine, according to the author.
Sanctions have struggled to keep up. After the U.S. sanctioned Uganda's African Gold Refinery, a new company, Thaba, took over the same role and started exporting within a year.
The author argued that record prices are pulling more conflict and smuggled gold into the market, making provenance murkier as the price climbs. $GLD