- Gold Smuggling Crackdown: Cameroon Seeks Over US$500 million in Unpaid Taxes
Cameroon will launch a nationwide tax recovery operation on August 1 as authorities move to reclaim more than US$500 million in unpaid taxes and customs duties linked to undeclared gold exports, after international trade data exposed a vast gap in the country’s official export records.
The operation will target mining companies and unregistered production sites suspected of under-declaring gold output or operating outside the formal fiscal and customs framework. The Ministry of Mines, Industry and Technological Development said the campaign is intended to recover, in the short term, at least 300 billion CFA francs, equivalent to about US$524 million.
The crackdown follows findings from Cameroon’s Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative reporting, which showed that the country officially recorded just 22.30 kilograms of gold exports in 2023, while the United Arab Emirates alone reported importing more than 15 tonnes of gold from Cameroon over the same period. The EITI described the discrepancy as almost 700 times higher than Cameroon’s official export declaration.
The figures have intensified scrutiny of Cameroon’s gold sector and raised wider concerns about illicit mineral trading, underreporting and weak regulatory oversight. For a country seeking to increase domestic revenue mobilisation and strengthen public finances, the scale of the gap suggests that substantial mineral wealth has been leaving the economy without being fully captured in tax, royalty and customs systems.
The recovery campaign will be coordinated by the Ministry of Mines, with the National Mining Corporation, SONAMINES, the Directorate General of Taxes and the Directorate General of Customs expected to play central roles. Authorities have identified 51 companies involved in physical gold extraction through traditional methods but suspected of reporting lower output than actual production, as well as 33 newly discovered sites whose output has not been declared or taxed.
The action forms part of a broader restructuring of Cameroon’s semi-mechanised artisanal mining sector. In April, the government said operators would be required to comply with tax obligations including a 25.00% final discharge mining tax, a 5.00% export tax and a 1.50% contribution to the mining policy implementation fund.
The Ministry has also announced tighter operational rules, including mandatory environmental rehabilitation bonds, minimum monthly production thresholds based on site capacity and a requirement for operators to migrate within six months to closed-circuit leaching technology, described by authorities as cleaner and more traceable.
The tax recovery drive reflects a growing policy shift across Africa. Governments are increasingly using discrepancies between national export declarations and importing-country customs data to detect illicit financial flows, trade misinvoicing and mineral smuggling.
Gold is at the centre of that effort. Its high value, portability and large informal production base make it one of the easiest minerals to smuggle and one of the hardest for tax authorities to track. Where regulatory systems are weak, gold can move from artisanal sites through informal buyers and cross-border networks before entering international markets as legally traded metal.
Cameroon’s case is particularly stark because of the size of the UAE discrepancy. The UAE, and Dubai in particular, has long been one of the world’s major gold trading hubs. EITI said UAE data showed more than 15 tonnes of Cameroonian-origin gold imports in 2023 against Cameroon’s official record of 22.30 kilograms, while also noting that Rwanda and Uganda reported gold imports from Cameroon.
Greenpeace Africa, citing EITI and UN Comtrade data, said last month that between 2021 and 2025, an estimated 44 tonnes of gold left Cameroon for Dubai while Cameroon’s customs authorities declared only 148 kilograms for export.
That longer-period estimate suggests the problem is not a one-year statistical anomaly, but a structural leakage in the gold value chain. It also points to the difficulty of regulating semi-mechanised and artisanal mining in remote regions where state monitoring capacity is limited and informal trading networks are deeply entrenched.
The government’s move is therefore not only about recovering arrears. It is also a test of whether Cameroon can impose traceability, taxation and environmental discipline on a sector that has historically operated with significant opacity.
Officials have framed the exercise as part of a wider modernisation of the mining sector, including the launch of major mining projects and a restructuring of the gold industry. Financial Afrik reported that Minister of Mines Fuh Calistus Gentry said nearly 90.00% of gold produced in Cameroon escapes official collection channels, depriving the state of substantial tax revenue and feeding a large informal market.
For public finances, the potential gains are substantial. Recovering hundreds of millions of dollars would provide fiscal relief at a time when many African governments are facing tighter borrowing conditions, rising debt service costs and pressure to fund infrastructure and social spending.
But the campaign will be difficult. Tax recovery from informal or semi-formal mining operators requires reliable production estimates, legal enforceability, customs cooperation, site-level monitoring, political will and protection against regulatory capture. It may also face resistance from operators, local intermediaries and cross-border trading networks that benefit from weak oversight.
The credibility of the operation will depend on whether authorities can distinguish legitimate operators from illegal ones, enforce compliance consistently and avoid turning the exercise into a one-off revenue raid.
Cameroon’s experience will be watched beyond its borders. Ghana, Mali, Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo are among African gold-producing countries seeking to improve mineral traceability, curb smuggling and capture a larger share of extractive-sector revenues.
The wider lesson is clear: mineral wealth does not automatically strengthen public finances. Without transparent production data, export controls, tax enforcement and credible traceability, gold can enrich private networks while leaving the state with little more than environmental damage and lost revenue.
If Cameroon’s August operation succeeds, it could become a model for how African governments use international trade data to expose hidden mineral flows and recover lost revenue.
If it fails, the country’s 700-fold export gap will remain a warning of how easily gold can disappear from official records while reappearing in global markets.
