Politics

The new dirty gold race

Among the skyscrapers of the Jumeirah Lake Towers of Dubaione of the dozens of franche areas of the city, the Gold Tower stands out, a 37 floors covered with golden glass. This is not the whim of an Emir, but of marketing: numerous companies related to gold trade are located inside the tower. The Emirate, in fact, has become the second world hub, overcoming London, for the trade of the precious metal, of which today 29 percent passes precisely for the metropolis of the Gulf. Only in 2024, the turnover of the Emirates linked to gold grew by more than a third, touching the 130 billion dollars. A dizzying figure, also daughter of the surge in the price of the precious metal, who last July touched the record of $ 2,483.73 the ounce (about 88 dollars per gram). The purchases of the central banks, the increase in demand in China, geopolitical tensions and the united monetary ease expectations of the United States were raised. However, this flourishing market has a contraindication: stimulating illegal trafficking in the precious resource by definition. And just in the shade of the skyscrapers of Dubai one of the nerve joints of this dark business is hidden.

Taking advantage of the agile regulations of the franche areas, Attorney to attract foreign investments, criminal organizations and foreign regimes have implanted lucrative officers of smuggling and gold recycling, mostly coming from the African mines. The Arab Kingdom absorbs half of production today from that continent. This, however, includes, alongside the legal action, numerous artisan mines, from which every year it is obtained – and exported clandestinely – metal for a value of about 35 billion dollars, a trafficking of which 80 percent flows between The rich buildings overlooking the Persian Gulf. There, the dust or gold dough, the formats preferred by traffickers, are merged, sometimes “cut” with other legal matter, by purchasing a new origin, immaculate and according to the law. Illusional trafficking not only enriches dangerous subjects, but It is also marked by blood and poisons. The illegal gold mines, mainly present in Africa and South America, are primarily the exploitation of very poor people, often victims of trafficking. The UNODC, the United Nations Office for drug control and crime, has estimated, for example, that in the Amazon region of Brazil almost 40 percent of miners are forced to work in actual slavery conditions. In addition, in the slums around extractive sites and in nearby cities, criminal organizations manage widespread prostitution rackets. For example in Peru, in La Stradonada, mining center of this type, it is estimated that the only minor girls forced to extreme forms of prostitution are several thousand. The social damages are added those for the environment. In addition to the deforestation of tens of thousands of hectares of rain and tropical forest, the extractive sites are contaminated by the mercury, highly toxic, used to separate gold from the raw mineral. Over the past thirty years, 2,300 tons of this metal have been downloaded in the rio of the Amazons and in other South American rivers such as the Orinoco. The impact on ecosystems, and consequently on human health, is devastating: among the indigenous Yanomami of Brazil, who live in one of the most affected regions, one child out of two is now suffering from cognitive deficit caused by mercury’s poisoning.

To this already salty account are added the wars of which gold is simultaneously objective and engine. In Africa, the Wagner group of the deceased Russian oligarch Evgenij Prigingu, now absorbed in the Africa Corps under the direct orders of the Kremlin, was mastering this aspect of the traffic. In just under two years, from the beginning of the invasion of Ukraine at the end of 2023, the mercenaries recycled 2.5 billion dollars from the golden draw in Mali, the Central African Republic and Sudan. Three countries of the Sahelian belt united by dramatic conflicts, still ongoing, where Wagner has made agreements with local governments, offering its services in exchange for lavish compensation, paid mainly with the exploitation of the mines. While the Maliana military junta preferred to deal directly with the traffic of precious metal and pay the Russians in cash, in the Central African Republic Prigaking had managed to obtain the exclusive extraction rights in the largest gold mine in the country. The civilian population, however, paid a high price for these concerned alliances. As in the village of Moura, where three years ago the men of Wagner and the government troops exterminated 500 people, suspecting that rebellious militants were hiding among them. Or in Abigado, where to be targeted by the Kalashnikovs were local miners who did not want to abandon the mining site passed into the hands of the Russians, who did not hesitate to kill at least seventy people.

It is in Sudan, however, that the operations of the white mercenaries have consolidated more: arrived in 2017 At the invitation of the then President Omar Al-Bashir, Wagner has created a facade company, the Meroe Gold, and opened a gold refining system, then tightening a profitable alliance with the largest trafficker in the African country: General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, commander of the Rapid Support Forces, powerful paramilitary training born from the ashes of the Janjaweed, responsible for the genocide in the Darfur area. Thanks also to the Russian support, paid with the proceeds of the mines, two years ago Dagalo was able to declare war on his former ally, General Abdel Fattoh Al-Burhan, commander of the military junta in power after the al-Bashir expulsion in 2019 . It is the bloodiest war now denied.

With the hunger of global gold in continuous growth and increasingly high profits, It is difficult to think that, despite the terrible costs, illegal trafficking can stop. It is enough to look at India, one of the major importers in the world, which every year absorbs about a thousand tons of gold: almost a quarter of this volume enters irregularly in the country, hidden in double funds or transported by mules such as jewels and figurines. The high import rates imposed by the government are not enough to discourage Indian buyers, who consider it a safe investment and the best wedding gift. At each wedding they circulate on average from two to three kilos of gold – obviously not equally distributed between rich and poor.

Also in the West, given the uncertain times, those who can invest in gold as a refuge asset. “In the current context, with the euro that loses ground on the dollar and with the crisis of the German economy, to which ours is linked, I believe that there will also be a new push also in Italy to the purchase of gold, Typically a good refuge. But the high -income social bands will benefit from this, while those who find themselves in economic narrowness will indeed be driven by the circumstances to sell what little they can still possess »explains Mauro Galatati, professor of economics at the Polytechnic University of the Marche. Despite the favorable scenario for traffickers, a warm hope comes from a greater commitment of national and international authorities. The contrast of the crime organized in this field can not be postponed, given that, for example, in Colombia and Peru, drug signs obtain greater income from gold than from cocaine. Even the Emiratine government, determined to contrast the illegal activities related to the precious metal in Dubai, seems to be moving: last October suspended, at least temporarily, the activities of over thirty gold refining workshops, suspected of being involved in business dirty. Perhaps the first step of a journey that would be very long.