A gold trader exposed in Al Jazeera’s Gold Mafia investigative documentary has revealed that he smuggles a ton of gold from Ghana every month.
Al Jazeera’s latest investigation, Gold Mafia, has uncovered a band of criminals driving gold smuggling and money laundering worth billions of dollars in Southern Africa.
However, those involved in this gold smuggling syndicate have business networks that stretch across the continent and operate in many other countries including Ghana.
Alistair Mathias, described by the investigative reporters as a financial architect who builds money laundering schemes for corrupt politicians, was approached by undercover journalists posing as Chinese criminals to help them launder money from China.
While assuring the undercover reporters of his competence, he revealed that he has been smuggling $40 million worth of gold from Ghana monthly, which is $480 million worth of gold annually.
“I’ve been doing it for about 13 years now, 14 years. In Ghana I do one ton. I do $40 million every month out of Ghana. This region I do probably about 500 to one ton again. I do roughly about $70 to $80 million every month. We can export from Zambia. I can export from South Africa,” he told the reporters.
He then urged the undercover journalists to set up a company in Dubai that they could claim was involved in the gold trade in order to help them launder their money.
Al Jazeera has only released the first episode of the four-part investigative series into gold smuggling in Africa.