591 tonnes of conflict-linked gold entered the UAE in 2024, worth $74 billion

The United Arab Emirates received in 2024 at least 591 tonnes of smuggled or conflict-linked gold, worth about $74 billion calculated at gold prices on 1 November 2024, representing 42% of the country's total gold imports during the same year, according to a report issued by the Swiss organization SWISSAID.

Africa recorded the largest share of these flows; at least 453 tonnes worth nearly $56.7 billion arrived from its countries, more than half of which was estimated to have left its countries of extraction without official export registration. Guinea, Mali and Sudan topped the list of exporting countries. Meanwhile, UAE imports from Russia and Yemen combined reached 137.7 tonnes, worth about $17 billion.

The report devoted prominent space to Sudanese gold; UN experts link the Rapid Support Forces to control over gold production areas in Darfur and Kordofan, and to using their revenues to finance the war that erupted in 2023. The UAE received about 29 tonnes from Sudan in 2024, which the report counted as conflict-linked gold.

SWISSAID noted that the regulations approved by the UAE on 1 January 2023 did not lead to a tangible improvement in compliance; of the 52 independent audit reports covered by the study for the period 2023-2025, only two were classified as fully compliant. The organization warned of a fundamental loophole, namely that gold traders and brokers are subject to lighter oversight compared with refineries, which makes it harder to trace the metal's origins.

The UAE ended 2024 as the world's second-largest gold exporter.