This excellent article by the FT’s William Wallis in Nairobi and Peter Andringa in London is behind a paywall and I cannot share it. This paragraph is just the top line.

Martin

It was one of the largest gold heists in world history, executed in the opening salvos of Sudan’s civil war in April 2023. As paramilitary forces battled their former allies from the Sudan military, they seized the state-owned gold refinery in Khartoum and broke into the central bank.

At least 1.5 tonnes of bullion worth $100mn at that time was stolen, together with jewellery raided from safe-deposit boxes at commercial banks. A witness, whose version of events was corroborated by three other people familiar with the operation, says the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces transported the gold across borders, including to neighbouring Chad and South Sudan.

The RSF denies involvement and the details of the theft are contested. But where much of the gold went next is no mystery: from the international airport in South Sudan’s capital, it was loaded on to planes destined for the UAE.

“The Emiratis sent cargo planes, sometimes civilian, sometimes military, to come and ship the gold,” the insider says. The UAE’s part in this episode underscores the central role the Gulf state is playing as Africa’s offshore capital, and as the most consequential foreign power to stamp its mark on the continent in the past decade.