Gold from Ituri province in northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo is financing one of Africa’s most entrenched shadow economies. A confidential mid-term report by the United Nations Group of Experts calculates that armed groups and criminal networks now earn at least $140 million annually from the province’s largely unregulated artisanal mines—more than Congo’s official bullion exports from the region.
Field researchers traced the revenue chain from pits around Djugu and Mambisa, where militias such as CODECO-URDPC and the Zaïre group impose ad-hoc “access fees” of up to $30,000 per trader and levy production taxes in cash or doré. Gold moves by motorbike and river barge to clandestine buying houses in Bunia and Mongbwalu, then crosses into Uganda, where it is laundered through legal export channels before re-entering global supply lines. The UN team estimates that less than 1 percent of Ituri’s artisanal output is declared to Congo’s mining registry, widening the gap between recorded and actual production.
Militia commanders have professionalised the trade. Prior to the army’s brief occupation of Lodjo in March, CODECO leader Samuel Kadogo controlled the entire Mongbwalu-Nzebi complex, operating weigh stations and issuing receipts that legitimised illegal tolls. His counterpart in the Zaïre militia, Baraka Maki, used hotel businesses in Bunia to launder cash, according to the UN’s financial-flow analysis. Both groups exploit ethnic divides: Lendu traders pay a discounted entry fee, while non-Lendu merchants are charged a premium, reinforcing the conflict’s communal fault lines. 
The economic cost extends beyond lost royalties. Provincial officials concede that armed checkpoints and the expulsion of state mining agents have “completely collapsed” traceability schemes required by downstream refiners. European jewelers and electronics firms relying on voluntary due-diligence programmes now face heightened contamination risk, even as regulators tighten anti-money-laundering rules for high-risk minerals.
Diplomatic pressure is building. Washington and Brussels have privately urged Kampala to strengthen border inspections after UN investigators documented at least 23 tonnes of Ituri gold entering Uganda in 2024 with incomplete origin data. Rwanda also features in the report as a transit point, a finding Kigali disputes. Congo’s mining ministry, for its part, plans to relaunch a digital production-tracking platform shelved in 2022, though past pilot schemes foundered on security constraints.
For multinational trading houses, the numbers are modest against a 4,000-tonne global gold market. For armed factions operating on budgets of a few million dollars a year, they are transformative: funding weapons, patronage networks and local administrations that undercut Kinshasa’s authority. Until formal supply-chain controls reach the forest mines of Djugu—or until buyers refuse undocumented metal—Ituri’s gold will remain currency for war as much as a commodity for investors.
