‘Zim a top 5 gold smuggler’

ZIMBABWE is one of the top five African countries reportedly smuggling  gold to the United Arab Emirates (UAE), a new report shows.

The report, titled On the Trail of African Gold: Quantifying Production and Trade to Combat Illicit Flows, was released by SWISSAID last week and looks at how Africa “is the world’s main gold-producing continent” and “how the yellow metal plays an immense and contrasting role there”.

“It (Gold) is, among others, a source of income for millions of artisanal miners, the main source of revenue for many governments, a means of financing armed groups and the cause of serious human rights violations and environmental degradation.

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