Kenya has been named a major transit hub in Africa’s illegal gold trade, according to the Africa Organised Crime Index 2025.
The report notes that Africa’s rich biodiversity and abundant natural resources make the continent a major source for crimes involving extractive commodities and wildlife, feeding high-value illicit markets worldwide.
In 2025, crimes involving non-renewable resources were the third most common criminal market in Africa, after financial crimes and human trafficking. The continent contains vast reserves of gold, diamonds, and platinum, with an estimated tens of billions of dollars’ worth of gold smuggled out of Africa every year.
This trade depletes national reserves, reduces government revenue, exploits workers in mining sites, and causes serious environmental damage.
“A network of transit hubs sustain the illicit gold flows and are located in areas that have weak regulatory oversight, are close to production areas or have strong logistical links,” the report reads.
These hubs include Mali and Ghana in West Africa, Libya in North Africa, the DRC in Central Africa, Kenya in East Africa, and Zimbabwe in Southern Africa.
The report also highlights that the exploitation of mineral and financial resources has triggered massive humanitarian crises in the region. Between April 2023 and November 2024, more than 28,700 fatalities were reported in Sudan, including 7,500 civilians killed in direct attacks.
Economic hubs such as Khartoum have been ravaged, and most people have been subjected to sexual violence, looting, and destruction of health facilities and other infrastructure. Almost half of Sudan’s population now requires humanitarian aid, and over 30 percent have been displaced, creating conditions for human trafficking and smuggling networks to thrive.
The civil war has also reshaped migration and smuggling routes. In 2025, Egypt’s visa restrictions on Sudanese refugees forced many to rely on smuggling networks, particularly through the contested Halayeb Triangle.
Increased arrivals at the Libyan border reflected shifting migration patterns, while in western Sudan, violence by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) led to large-scale displacement into Chad. Refugees often travel independently, but smuggling networks along the Chad–Sudan border are increasingly vital to ensure safe passage through RSF-controlled areas or to reach longer routes toward northern Niger and southern Libya.
The report also notes a limited resurgence of migrant and refugee flows from Ethiopia and Eritrea into southeastern Sudan, which could further strengthen smuggling corridors from eastern Sudan to Egypt and worsen regional security.
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