INVESTIGATION: Deadly Gold Rush: Bandits, Blood, and the Global Hunt for Nigeria’s Stolen Gold

By Sani Saidu Muhammad (2024/2025 Resilience Fellow, Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime)

Across Nigeria’s northwest, gold no longer signifies fortune, it signifies fear.

In the forests of Birnin Gwari and the valleys of Zamfara, bandits have supplanted governance. Gold has replaced government authority. The soil is rich, yet the people remain impoverished, trapped in a cycle of violence sustained by raw ore.

Living Under the Gun

Haruna Kabiru’s face is streaked with dust and sweat as he climbs from a shallow pit in midday heat. “We dig because we’re hungry,” he says. “But every dig might be the last.”

His village, once alive with voices, now lies silent, another ghost settlement among hundreds. More than 200,000 people have been displaced; many who once farmed or mined peacefully now work under the guns of armed groups.

Mining here is not employment, it is survival by risk. Each sack of ore fuels a criminal chain that stretches from Zamfara’s pits to vaults in Dubai. Armed groups run the mines; corrupt security agents shield the smugglers; politicians remain silent.

The Health Toll – Lead Poisoning and Children’s Lives

In remote communities such as Bagega and Yargalma, artisanal miners once ground gold-bearing rock inside family compounds. The ore was laced with lead. Fine toxic dust settled over food, floors, and clothing. Infants crawled through it; children inhaled it.

Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed that in some villages 100 percent of children tested had blood-lead levels far beyond safety thresholds. Over 400 children died before medical help reached them; many survivors now live with permanent neurological damage.

Despite the tragedy, illegal mining persists, bankrolling the same networks that terrorize these communities. Armed groups extract “protection fees,” seize ore, and sell gold to buyers beyond Nigeria’s borders. A Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC) report links this “criminal gold economy” directly to the financing of insecurity.

Policy Backfire – The 2019 Mining Ban

In 2019 the federal government banned artisanal mining in Zamfara, hoping to choke off bandit funding. Instead, the measure deepened the crisis.
When legitimate traders and firms withdrew, armed groups moved in. Abandoned pits became strongholds.

According to the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED), violent deaths in Zamfara rose 183 percent within a year of the ban. With lawful miners gone, bandits imposed their own taxes, compelled labor, and used profits to acquire more weapons. What was intended as security reform became the engine of a war economy.

Amina’s Loss

In Maru village, Zamfara State, Amina Abubakar’s thirteen-year-old son was trapped in a collapsed pit. Rescuers pulled him out paralyzed. “I only found out when they came to tell me he was buried underground,” she says.

Her family can no longer farm, drought and repeated bandit raids have destroyed their fields. With no crops and no income, she and her children now mine contaminated soil to survive. Doctors call the lingering dust “the killing dust.” It carries lead and arsenic that have poisoned entire generations.

Human Rights Watch and the CDC identified Zamfara’s outbreak as one of the world’s worst environmental health disasters, killing over 400 children and affecting thousands more. Even today, children play near rust-stained pits where fine lead dust still floats in the air.

Cross-Border Laundering – The Dubai Connection

Renowned Dubai Gold Souq

“The gold here is our curse,” says Ibrahim Dan Tsauri, a miner in Zamfara, pausing to rest his pickaxe. “Every morning I wake up wondering if this will be my last day.”

Across the northwest, villagers rely on vigilante guards, young men paid from community contributions to defend their pits. In Gobirawa Chali, fifteen of them were hired; five died in an April 2023 raid that left twenty villagers dead.

Bandit groups no longer just extort miners, they run extraction and trade. They seize pits, enforce levies, and demand cuts from smugglers. “When the bandits come, everything stops,” says Umar, a miner in Birnin Gwari. “If we resist, they will shoot.”

Nigeria’s security service (DSS) and analysts confirm that many gunmen are former herders who now operate as resource-taxing militias. Some run entire mining camps; others extort a percentage of each ore bag. In Fakai, miners recount how refusal to pay half their gold cost several lives in December 2023.

Experts Weigh In

“We have recovered thousands of kids from these villages,” says Asiya Ahmad, a UNICEF-trained nurse in Anka. “Even with chelation medicine, many will never fully recover. Lead can damage minds permanently.”

Inside her clinic, the damage is visible: children unable to walk or speak, parents showing faded photos of once-healthy sons and daughters. “The real problem,” Ahmad says, “is still in the dust, the water, the air.”

Dr. Kabir Ishak adds, “We treat them here, but the minute they go home, it starts again.”
Dr. Ibrahim Musa reports seeing “a hidden epidemic, no one sees this poison, but it kills.”

Medical data confirm the warning. Soil and water samples across Zamfara show lead far above safe limits. A joint MSF–TerraGraphics survey found over 2,500 children with life-threatening blood-lead levels in seven villages.

Aliyu Musa, a health worker who joined the cleanup, recalls, “These were not just statistics. These were children who could no longer walk, talk, or feed themselves. We cleaned up the worst-hit villages, but the danger is still here.”

Broken Communities, Broken Dreams

Maraban Giwa – The Children Left Behind

In Maraban Giwa, Birnin Gwari LGA, 14-year-old Yusuf Hamisu loads a sack of ore onto his shoulder. “I miss going to school,” he says. “The teachers told us that as long as the bandits are here, the doors will stay locked.”

Across Anka and Maru, children like Yusuf dig trenches fifteen feet deep, scraping for grams of gold. Hadiza Lawal lost her husband in a bandit raid; her teenage son joined illegal miners and was later abducted. She has not seen him since.

Zamfara’s forests are now carved into fiefdoms ruled by warlords such as Ali Kachalla (“Ali Kawaje”) and Dogo Giɗe. They levy “taxes” on miners, conscript labor, and run their own gold routes. Local politicians and security agents are alleged to profit through payoffs and protection fees.

A vigilante leader in Anka claims, “Security officials escort gold-laden trucks from mining pits. They take payment in cash or gold.” Investigations by Reuters and GI-TOC corroborate such collusion.

When bandits capture a village, they impose parallel rule, taxing miners, extorting families, and demanding women as “tolls.” Survivors like Fatima (not real name) recount abduction and forced marriage: “They said I belonged to the mine now,” she whispers.

Malam Adamu, a hunter in Birnin Gwari, says: “We used to trade maize and cattle. Now if you don’t pay the bandits’ tax, they burn your house.” Entire markets have vanished as families flee or pay tribute to survive.

Exclusive Interview – Inside the Dirty Trade

Anka, Zamfara State

A six-week field inquiry uncovered an underground trade network operating from mining clusters across Anka LGA. Local buyers, middlemen, and transporters described how raw gold leaves the forests under armed escort and disappears into regional smuggling chains that stretch to the Persian Gulf.

Malam Sani, a trader at the Anka market, spoke openly:

“We buy between ₦5 million and ₦10 million worth of gold every market day. Sometimes 100 to 500 grams, sometimes more. The price per gram is around ₦18,000 to ₦20,000 depending on purity. We melt and repackage it. From here it goes to Gusau, then Kano. After that? It disappears. Some say Sokoto, some say Niger Republic. But everyone knows the end buyer sits in Dubai.”

 Flow of Illicit Gold – Zamfara → Kano → Niger → Dubai.

Hassan, another trader, adds:

“The big men come in Toyota Hilux trucks with armed escorts. We sell, they pay in cash, sometimes in dollars, sometimes in CFA francs. That’s when you know it’s going across the border.”

Field investigators and local vigilantes confirmed that smugglers are protected by those meant to police them, blurring the boundary between legality and organized crime. A retired Customs officer summarized:

“It’s a chain, from village mines to Dubai stores. Everyone eats, but the poor bleed.”

Follow the Gold, Find the Guns

A 2023 Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime report estimated that more than 95 tonnes of African artisanal gold left the continent unrecorded. Nigeria ranked among the top leakage points. Dubai imported over US $4 billion in African gold that year without verified origin documentation.

A senior Department of State Services (DSS) officer confirmed the link between smuggling and weapons supply:

“Each kilogram that leaves Zamfara funds new AK-47s. These aren’t just illegal miners—they are proxy financiers for terror syndicates.”

Although the Ministry of Solid Minerals has opened dialogue with the UAE on legal supply chains, officials privately concede that enforcement remains weak.

“We send data and reports,” one ministry insider said. “But Dubai won’t blacklist these traders unless they’re pressured internationally.”

Voices from Within – Bandits Speak

“Yakubu,” a self-acknowledged member of a faction loyal to warlord Dogo Giɗe, describes the business model:

“Mining gold brings easier money than kidnapping. We control the sites; the government won’t come here. When we sell gold, no one shouts or sends soldiers. When we take people, they come for us.”

Security analysts from the International Crisis Group and ENACT Africa confirm this shift. Gold has become a stable revenue source for armed groups across the northwest. A 2023 SBM Intelligence study found that these factions now operate as militia cartels with clear command structures and economic targets tied to mining sites.

Former fighter Gambo Ahmed explains:

“We used to steal cattle; now a kilo of gold buys ten rifles. When politicians and soldiers realized how much money was in gold, they joined in. We didn’t bring the guns, the gold did.”

Political Collusion and State Silence

Field investigations reveal that parts of the political and security elite profit from the same mines funding the violence.
Politicians with undeclared concessions reportedly hire armed groups to guard sites and eliminate rivals. The Baleri and Dogo Giɗe networks grew wealthy protecting these concessions for political patrons.

When rival jihadist factions such as Ansaru moved into Zamfara’s forests, territorial battles erupted, displacing thousands. A repentant bandit recalls:

“An elder gave me a gun at 16. I didn’t know anything then. But there’s nothing else to eat, and our village has no water.”

Displacement, climate stress, and economic collapse push young men deeper into this violent economy.

“We do this digging with our bare hands,” says Yaro, another miner. “Every day is a prayer we survive.”

Cross-Border Gold and Terror

A 2022 Swissaid study reported that 435 tonnes of African gold worth more than US $30 billion were smuggled off the continent, 405 tonnes of it to the UAE.

Dubai remains the main hub for undeclared African bullion, receiving about 93 percent of illicit exports that year (Financial Times analysis).

Mineral economist Dr. Nafisa Bello warns:

“Dubai’s vaults are filling with our blood. Every ounce they buy unchecked lets bandits refill their ammunition.”

ENACT Africa reports that Nigerian traffickers exploit porous borders and corrupt checkpoints to move gold mixed with legal consignments through Niger and Togo. The organisation cautions that unregulated mining revenues could finance extremist networks if oversight remains absent.

In November 2024, Nigeria’s government proposed a bilateral “legal route” with the UAE to certify gold exports. While officials promise clearer chains of custody, miners remain skeptical.

“Dubai traders whisper about our gold every time they pass by,” says a miner near Anka. “The government talks about committees; in the camps, the bandit leaders talk about bigger plans.”

War Economy and Scorched Forests

In the forests of Zamfara and Birnin Gwari, gold has become war currency.
Satellite imagery reviewed by analysts shows scorched landscapes spreading around mining clusters. Residents say armed groups torch forests to flush out rivals or hide fresh graves.

Dr. Nafisa Bello issues a blunt warning:

“Every ounce of gold out of Zamfara is soaked in blood. If Dubai keeps buying, our forests will keep burning.”

A schoolteacher in Dansadau describes the scene:

“The skyline turns black by noon. The trees are gone. The air smells like metal and ash.”

Colonel Tunde Okafor, Army liaison officer in Kaduna, agrees that the fight cannot rely on ground patrols alone:

“We need drones in the sky and scanners at the borders. The money dries up only if the market closes.”

Regional observers note that Birnin Gwari has become a flashpoint where jihadist and bandit factions clash over gold profits. In 2022, fighters linked to Ansaru reportedly battled Dogo Giɗe’s men for control of a mining route, killing dozens. These conflicts are driven less by ideology than by revenue control.

Insert Map: Conflict Hotspots – Birnin Gwari and Zamfara Mining Belts.

Faces of Survival – Zamfara IDP Camp

Displaced families now crowd makeshift shelters near Anka and Maru. Children clutch plastic pans once used to wash ore. Mothers trade firewood for food aid. For them, gold still defines survival, but only as memory and loss.

As one widow, Laila Abdulkadir, says beside her husband’s grave:

“He left us hungry, and now even God’s dust won’t let us live.”

Final Note

This investigative report by Sani Saidu Muhammad, a 2024/2025 Resilience Fellow of the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC), was developed through a mentorship programme with GI-TOC and La Cellule Norbert Zongo pour le journalisme d’investigation en Afrique de l’Ouest (CENOZO), under the project “Support to the Mitigation of Destabilizing Effects of Transnational Organised Crime (M-TOC)” commissioned by the German Federal Foreign Office (GFFO) and implemented by GIZ and GI-TOC (2024–2025).
This article is independent and does not necessarily represent the views of GI-TOC, CENOZO, GIZ, or GFFO.