Sudan: Investigation links Volkswagen and other companies to supply chains tied to looted gold financing the conflict
"The case of Volkswagen - the cid002567 footprint: Tracking Sudan’s gold through global supply chains" April 2026
A turning point in the exploitation of the mining sector to finance the war was the Rapid Support Forces takeover of the National Gold Refinery in Khartoum on 24 May 2023. The forces seized approximately 1.3 tonnes of unrefined gold and 15 tonnes of silver ready for export, with an estimated value at the time of approximately $150 million. The Sudanese Minister of Finance confirmed this and indicated that the quantity amounted to approximately 2.7 tonnes. The Minister of Minerals stated that these quantities had been previously documented and allocated to the Central Bank, the Ministry of Finance, private companies and the state's strategic portfolio, but that the Rapid Support Forces seized them in their entirety less than 40 days after the outbreak of the war...
The comparative analysis shows fundamental structural changes within the site that indicate gradual destruction and a complete cessation of industrial activity. The CID002567 gold that appeared in the Volkswagen Raw Minerals Report 2024 is highly likely to be the gold reported as stored in the refinery... After seizing the Sudan Gold Refinery in 2023, independent reports documented the transfer of some of the looted gold through smuggling routes to Chad as a major transit point before heading to re-export markets. A number of reports indicated that the Rapid Support Forces quickly began securing supply routes west into Chad and south through South Sudan after seizing large quantities of gold and stabilizing exports, reflecting the transformation of gold into a cross-border financing channel on a larger scale....
Recent investigations by reliable platforms, further verified by CESS through interviews with gold traders, concluded that large quantities of Sudanese gold and other materials have been crossing into Chad and South Sudan since the outbreak of the war, before being re-exported via Dubai, in a smuggling pattern that explains the gap between local production figures and the volume of exports recorded in neighboring countries... Even after April 2023, the Sudan Gold Refinery had remained a component of major global companies' supplier networks, despite its non-compliance with RMI standards...
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