Cameroon’s $300-million gold drain – The Continent

African countries lose about $90-billion a year to illicit financial flows. These are “mostly linked to trade misinvoicing in extractive commodities, half of them in gold”, according to the Mo Ibrahim Foundation. Cameroon’s gold sector is a sharp example of this. The country’s official records report gold exports of just 22.3kg in 2023 – equivalent to one suitcase – but import data from other countries shows more than 15 tonnes of gold originating from Cameroon. The leading importer of Cameroon’s gold is – no surprises here – the United Arab Emirates.

The Continent travelled to Zamboï in Cameroon’s Eastern Region to investigate the conditions for – and impact of – the illicit gold mining and trafficking that left Cameroon with the short end of the stick.

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