Cover Image: by Brasidas Group
As gold reaches all-time highs, windfalls from artisanal mining fund regimes and conflict zones. In Venezuela, artisanal mining enables the Maduro government’s purchases of Iranian arms and oil products. In Sudan, it fuels the fighting of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and Rapid Support Forces (RSF), as gold flows to patrons such as Russia, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). In Myanmar, regions both within and outside the junta’s control generate income for the civil war and provide another source to meet the Chinese central bank’s growing demand for gold. Consequently, the commodity used as a hedge against uncertainty indirectly contributes to the forces that determine its value.
On 20 October 2025, the price of gold peaked at over USD 4.3k per troy ounce, reaching nearly an all-time high when accounting for inflation. This spike, driven by factors such as a weakening dollar, central bank purchases, and geopolitical uncertainty, represents a boon for gold investors, miners, and the jewelry box. National gold reserves have long been used to fund war and governmental functions in times of crisis, and the commodity’s price fluctuations in response to war and other risks are well known.
However, in many regions, increases in the market price of gold cross cost thresholds that serve as barriers to entry for artisanal miners. Artisanal gold mining, which involves individuals and groups using minimal or no mechanization, often illegally, accounts for nearly 20% of the world’s yearly production. A relatively simple refining process, combined with gold’s stability and high value by weight, enables the mineral to be consolidated and transported for sale without the extensive logistical and infrastructure requirements of materials such as oil. As a result, artisanal gold is an easily “lootable” material, minable in conflict zones through a variety of potentially low-cost methods and then easily transported and sold. These sources enable actors engaged in destabilizing behavior to profit from the destabilizing environments they create.
Venezuela
In the Southeastern Venezuelan states of Amazonas and Bolivar, illegal mining operations are widespread, often in areas once dominated by the country’s flagging petrochemical industry. For locals, including indigenous Amazonian groups, gold mining offers the promise of an income many times higher than ever-rarer opportunities for traditional employment. The work is dangerous and environmentally destructive, with many miners lacking basic services such as running water, electricity, and shelter, in combination with exposure to harmful chemicals. These risks extend to the miners’ homes and families. In one town in Venezuela’s “Orinoco Mining Arc”, an estimated 38% of school-aged children were found to have mercury contamination.
While nominally illegal, operations are overseen by armed groups such as the Las Claritas Syndicate, Tren de Guayana, Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), and National Liberation Army (ELN), operating under the tacit allowance of the Venezuelan government in exchange for a share of mining profits. For members of the Venezuelan armed forces, a posting to mining areas in Bolivar and Amazonas can net an income significantly higher than the established wages. For its part, the Venezuelan government is estimated by the US Department of State to have made more than USD 2.2 billion from gold production in 2021, when the average price of the mineral was less than half of its current value. Some estimates peg the government’s income from gold at many times that amount.
This income has helped Caracas prop up the Maduro government, often serving as tender in transactions with other internationally isolated actors such as Iran. In 2020, for example, Iranian tankers began supplying Venezuela with gasoline and other petrochemical products during an internal Venezuelan shortage, with the shipments believed to have been paid for in Venezuelan gold. Venezuela and Iran’s gold ties go deeper, as Venezuelan opposition figures assert that Iran-backed Hezbollah controls gold-mining areas in Bolivar with the approval of Caracas. Venezuela’s state airline is also alleged to be operating in conjunction with Iranian carriers that provide logistical support for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), with reports that flights from Venezuela to Moscow and Tehran were being used to transport military and intelligence personnel, munitions, and gold. Venezuela is a known operator of Iranian-made equipment, including systems seeing frontline action in Ukraine with Russian forces.
Consequently, the increased value of Venezuela’s artisanal gold has helped the Maduro government maintain a regional presence seen as destabilizing by countries such as the United States. Recent months have seen a rise in US-Venezuela tensions, and indicators of possible action between the two countries could result in corresponding pressure on gold prices. The Maduro government may likewise be financially benefiting from the very same geopolitical uncertainty that it is accused of fueling. Wide-reaching knock-on effects can likewise indirectly influence the price of Venezuela’s artisanal gold through risk generation. For example, gold mined deep in the Amazon may ultimately be supporting Iran’s defense industry, nuclear program, and military actions against Israel, with recent engagements influencing the commodity’s value.
Image: Scarring From Artisanal Mining Along the Icabaru River, Venezuela (4°24’15.3″N 62°11’15.3″W)
Sudan
In Sudan, the ongoing civil war between the Sudanese Armed Forces and Rapid Support Forces has been fueled, in part, by ongoing artisanal mining in areas controlled by both parties. Approximately 85% of Sudan’s gold is estimated to come from artisanal operations, with around 2 million people believed to be involved in this form of gold extraction. Both the SAF and RSF maintain cross-border networks to smuggle this gold, which helps fund arms purchases and sustain their forces. Much of the RSF’s gold production is focused in Darfur and West Kordofan, while the SAF holds mining areas in the Red Sea, River Nile, South Kordofan, and Northern states.,
The SAF, backed by Egypt and the el-Sisi government, funnels gold produced in Eastern Sudan to Egypt, which in turn offers incentives and favorable pricing to importers. Egypt, with its strategic interest in the Nile and water security, desires a friendly southern neighbor and has had long-standing ties with the SAF and its leadership. On the other side, the RSF is backed by the UAE, with senior RSF leadership having familial and business ties in the Gulf Country. The UAE’s support for the RSF is driven by concerns over Red Sea trade stability and concerns over Islamist influences in Sudan’s former government. Sudanese gold bound for the UAE is smuggled through neighboring countries, including Chad, Libya, and, counterintuitively, Egypt. The UAE is a major hub in the gold trade, with over 20 refineries, and was the second-largest gold importer in 2024, after Switzerland. Here, Sudanese gold is melted and mixed with gold from other sources, thereby obscuring its origins and facilitating easy resale. Notably, much of the gold from both sides of the conflict inevitably makes its way to the UAE, as the Emirati gold markets exert such a strong pull on the regional gold trade.
Russia, through the Wagner Group’s successor, the Africa Corps, operates its own refinery in Sudan. Moscow has been accused of supporting both sides of the conflict, all while maintaining an extensive gold smuggling network out of the country. This income has been labelled critical to Russia’s attempts to weather Western sanctions related to its war in Ukraine, and cash-for-gold transactions made by the Russian government. These transactions, and Russia’s actions against its neighbors, have been noted as pressures on world gold prices. Recent increases in the value of Russia’s Sudan-sourced gold, logically, allow the country to maintain the activities providing this very same upward pressure.
Likewise, gold’s recent surge in value will enable the RSF and SAF to continue funding their campaigns if current talks of a ceasefire following recent atrocities fail to halt the conflict, as foreign stakeholders’ active interests in the conflict’s outcome provide an open market for the country’s artisanal conflict gold. Price shocks also provide opportunities for the fighting actors in Sudan to “cash in” on newfound profits, affording them more munitions and materiel, and thereby increasing their capacity for violence and further destabilizing the region.
Myanmar
Since Myanmar’s 2021 coup and ongoing civil war, gold mining has rapidly expanded throughout the country. Gold, along with jade and rare earth minerals, is a target for mining operations in areas where regulation has failed for decades, such as the Shan and Kachin states. Both the country’s junta and local armed groups have used artisanal and institutional gold as a source of income, including where such operations are ostensibly illegal. This income, coupled with extensive rare-earth extraction in rebel-held areas, has given armed groups and breakaway regions the capital to sustain operations against the junta, as it has also assisted the current government.
China has taken an active interest in its neighbor’s ongoing civil war, with Chinese-backed rare earth and gold mining operations present in Myanmar’s border regions, and Beijing has grown increasingly frustrated with Myanmar’s failure to address online scamming centers staffed by trafficked Chinese nationals. As the world’s largest gold producer, China is seeking to expand its gold reserves, likely responding in part to Western countries’ actions taken to freeze Russian capital and cash reserves. Myanmar offers an additional source of gold for China, and Chinese companies are not subject to the same anti-artisanal gold regulations as those in many Western markets. Furthermore, pressure on local armed groups and the ruling junta allows Beijing to push the conflict to an end in its favor, cementing regional control and further access to critical minerals.
Myanmar’s gold rush, driven by current prices, thus not only facilitates immediate profits for warring internal actors but also enables powerful regional players such as China to continue its gold-hoarding through new extraction and investment opportunities. A Chinese central government with significant gold reserves may be more willing to take a hard stance in ongoing trade negotiations with Washington, a move that could maintain perceptions about global economic uncertainty. These reserves would also likely enter into any Chinese calculus over action against Taiwan and the resultant economic effects.
Conclusions
While industrial, established methods of extraction remain the predominant sources of gold production worldwide, offering regulated avenues for investment and business, the impacts of artisanal production cannot be ignored. Making up a significant percentage of total yearly production, artisanal mining not just responds to fluctuations in the price of gold but also supports the very actors that cause price-influencing global instability, such as failed states, militias, proxy groups, and unscrupulous governments. When accounting for these players in strategic decision-making, companies and organizations must understand the unique nature of these groups’ fundraising streams. Artisanal gold not only allows them to remain “unbanked” but also provides revenues that may positively respond to factors that would traditionally dissuade business and growth.
