Why Kenya was named key transit hub in Africa’s illicit gold trade

Kenya has been named a key transit hub in Africa’s illicit gold trade, according to the Africa Organised Crime Index 2025.

The report paints a troubling picture of how weak regulation, strategic logistics and proximity to production areas are enabling the smuggling of gold out of the continent every year.

It notes that a network of transit hubs sustains illicit gold flows across Africa, particularly in areas with limited regulatory oversight, strong transport infrastructure or close links to mining zones.

In East Africa, Kenya is identified as one such hub, alongside Mali and Ghana in West Africa, Libya in North Africa and Zimbabwe in Southern Africa.

According to the index, Africa’s extensive biodiversity and abundant natural resources make the continent a major origin point for crimes involving extractive commodities and wildlife that supply high-value illicit markets worldwide.

Gold, diamonds and platinum are singled out as key non-renewable resources feeding the global illicit economy.

It is estimated that gold worth tens of billions of dollars is smuggled out of Africa annually, depriving governments of crucial revenue and undermining development efforts.

“This trade depletes reserves, deprives national economies of vital revenue, results in human exploitation in mining sites, and causes severe environmental harm through destructive extraction methods.”

The Africa Organised Crime Index is a project of the Enhancing Africa’s Response to Transnational Organised Crime (ENACT) initiative and is sponsored by the European Union.

The index explores criminality and resilience dynamics across the continent, highlighting where illicit activities are most pervasive and where state responses are weakest or most compromised.

Beyond gold, the report underscores Africa’s central role in wildlife trafficking, noting that between 2015 and 2021, about one-fifth (19 per cent) of reported global wildlife seizures occurred on the continent, mainly in sub-Saharan Africa.

The top five species groups seized during that period were elephants, pangolins, rhinoceroses, crocodiles and parrots, reflecting Africa’s importance in high-impact fauna markets, particularly those supplying demand in Asia.

East Africa is identified as a hotspot for wildlife trafficking, with the region recording the highest regional score for illicit fauna markets.

Trafficking of cheetahs from East Africa is described as rampant, with an estimated 300 cheetah cubs smuggled every year through Somalia to private exotic animal collectors in Gulf countries.

Much like human smuggling, the report notes, wildlife trafficking in Africa follows well-established patterns tailored to specific species and routes between source and destination markets. Ports in the region play a critical role in facilitating these illicit flows.

“East Africa (in particular Tanzania and Kenya) is a source of illicit ivory that is shipped from Mombasa, Dar es Salaam, Maputo and Nampula in Mozambique to Asian markets, including Vietnam, Hong Kong, the Philippines and Malaysia.”

The report provides a broad assessment of how organised crime has evolved in Africa, examining the continent’s role in transnational criminal networks and the influence of geopolitics on organised crime dynamics.

After outlining the overall state of organised crime in Africa, it analyses the interaction between criminality and resilience, as well as what the future may hold for the continent.

Criminal markets in Africa are marked by significant diversity, ranging from commodity-based crimes and the exploitation of people and natural resources to cyber-dependent and financial crimes.

In the 2025 edition of the index, the most pervasive criminal markets were financial crimes, human trafficking, non-renewable resource crimes, the trade in counterfeit goods and arms trafficking.

Since 2023, financial crimes and the trade in counterfeit goods have emerged as the two fastest-growing criminal markets, mirroring global trends driven by digitalisation, cross-border financial flows and weak enforcement mechanisms.

While human smuggling has grown more slowly in recent years, the report notes that over the six-year period between the 2019 and 2025 indexes, it was the second fastest-growing criminal market after cocaine trafficking.

This growth, the report says, is indicative of instability, conflict and economic hardship driving the movement of people across borders.

The high score for non-renewable resource crimes reflects Africa’s abundant natural resources and biodiversity, which remain in high demand globally. Other criminal markets, including arms trafficking, flora crimes and cyber-dependent crimes, recorded marginal decreases between 2023 and 2025.

In the drug trade, the index identifies cannabis as the most entrenched illicit drug market in Africa in 2025, while heroin was the least entrenched. Regional patterns vary, with North Africa recording the highest scores for cannabis and synthetic drug trades, Southern Africa for heroin, and West Africa for cocaine.

The report also highlights the growing importance of East Africa and Southern Africa as destinations for Afghan synthetic drugs, particularly methamphetamine. Afghan methamphetamine emerged suddenly in 2019 and rapidly integrated into global drug supply chains.

Despite the Taliban banning drug production and sales in 2022, the report notes that methamphetamine production has continued, partly because laboratories used to produce the drug are harder to detect than heroin-related sites.

South Asian criminal networks that were already trafficking heroin into Southern Africa adapted by adding methamphetamine to their supply chains in response to strong local demand for illicit drugs.

In Kenya, the index flags broader security concerns linked to organised crime, noting that gangs and armed militias have at times been deployed to instigate violence aimed at influencing election outcomes or suppressing protestors.

Such dynamics, the report warns, further complicate efforts to combat organised crime by weakening institutions and eroding public trust.