Burkina Faso Customs announced on Wednesday the arrest of three individuals suspected of attempting to smuggle 28.6 kilograms of gold with an estimated value of $2.3 million to the neighbouring country of Togo.
The gold was hidden in the suspects’ clothing, and they were travelling by bus to Lome, the Togolese capital, according to a statement from customs officials.
Acting on “anonymous intelligence,” Burkinabe customs agents tracked their bus on Tuesday and apprehended them in the southeastern town of Cinkanse. Customs officers from Bittou, located northwest of Cinkanse, collaborated with police to achieve this “record seizure,” the statement noted.
It added that the suspects remain in custody and have “confessed to trafficking (the commodity) on behalf of a third party.”
In February, Burkina Faso, Africa’s fourth-largest gold producer, suspended gold exports from artisanal mines to regulate the industry.
Gold represents the largest export for the country, with the mining sector contributing 14 per cent to state revenue, as per data from the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI).
With 17 operational industrial gold mines, five are currently inactive due to an insurgency that has spread from Mali since 2015, claiming over 17,000 lives among civilians and soldiers and displacing two million individuals.
Authorities have found it challenging to regulate the artisanal sector, which the mines ministry estimates yields an additional 10 tonnes of gold annually.
In November 2023, the government commenced the construction of the nation’s first gold refinery, which is expected to have an annual output capacity of 150 tonnes of 99.99 per cent pure gold—equivalent to roughly 400 kilograms daily.
Earlier in February 2023, military authorities seized 200 kilograms of gold from a subsidiary of Canadian company Endeavour Mining, citing “public necessity.”
