Why armies cannot stop illegal gold mining

As rescue efforts got underway at Jabal al-Uqaydat, near Sudan’s border with Egypt, the mining site resembled the aftermath of a battlefield. Workers had abandoned their tools to carry the wounded on blankets used as makeshift stretchers, loading the injured into pickup trucks while others began digging graves. The devastation followed a 10 October airstrike that left at least 114 people dead, according to the Sudanese rights group Emergency Lawyers. Survivors blamed Egypt for the attack, though Cairo has not confirmed responsibility.

Despite the devastation, miners intend to return, with few alternative sources of income. Their determination highlights a wider challenge facing governments deploying military forces against illegal gold mining. As rising gold prices make extraction increasingly profitable, armies can destroy equipment and clear mining sites, but the economic incentives drawing miners back remain largely unchanged.

Why illegal gold mining has become so lucrative

Gold's extraordinary rise has transformed the economics of extraction. By October 2026, the precious metal was trading above $4,000 an ounce, having gained more than 120% over five years. Geopolitical uncertainty, growing investor demand for safe-haven assets, and central bank purchases have helped sustain historically high prices. With even small quantities commanding considerable value, deposits that were previously commercially unattractive have become increasingly profitable to exploit.

The expansion of small-scale mining reflects these growing incentives. Estimated global artisanal and small-scale gold production increased by approximately 23% between 2020 and 2024, from 687 to 843 tonnes. An August 2026 assessment by the World Gold Council confirmed that the sector's contribution to global supply has continued to grow, now accounting for roughly one-fifth of annual gold production and supporting approximately 20 million livelihoods worldwide.

In regions with limited employment opportunities, rising prices and accessible extraction techniques attract workers and investment, including to operations outside licensing systems.

A border becomes a mining front

Along Sudan's northern frontier, the growing value of gold has added another dimension to an already volatile security environment. In June 2026, Egyptian forces detained 223 suspected illegal miners and smugglers near the border, including 136 foreign nationals, and seized equipment used for unauthorized extraction. Cairo described the operation as part of its campaign against illegal mining and smuggling, linking enforcement to the protection of mining concessions and investment while warning that its military retained all available options.

Sudan's civil war has compounded the challenge. Since April 2023, displacement and the collapse of employment have driven thousands into artisanal mining, while gold revenues have helped finance warring factions. A Chatham House study updated in March 2026 documented extensive gold smuggling into Egypt, underscoring the frontier's commercial importance.

Such operations can bring security forces into confrontation with miners whose unauthorized extraction does not establish links to armed groups. Sudanese media reported that an earlier airstrike at Jabal al-Uqaydat in June had killed at least 15 people, although responsibility remains unconfirmed.

The high cost of an ineffective crackdown

The limits of military enforcement are particularly evident in Peru’s southeastern Madre de Dios region, where security forces have spent much of 2026 dismantling illegal gold mining operations. In July, soldiers and police entered the Tambopata National Reserve by helicopter and destroyed 32 mining rafts alongside pumps and engines. The government valued the equipment and infrastructure disabled at more than $8.5 million. Further raids in August sent commandos along the waterways to destroy suction pumps and mining camps, yet extraction continued.

Satellite monitoring published in May had identified 183 mining structures and 67 camps in the reserve as of February, alongside 500 hectares of mining-related deforestation recorded during 2025 and early 2026. The financial scale of the industry is equally striking. In September, the Peruvian Institute of Economics projected that illegally sourced gold could account for at least 52% of the country's gold exports in 2026, worth at least $16 billion.

Those returns help explain the limits of repeated raids. A single dredger can extract gold worth more than $6,000 in a day under favorable conditions. The military in Madre de Dios acknowledged that miners could quickly replace destroyed motors and resume work, sometimes the following day. During four days of operations observed in August, prosecutors made only a handful of arrests, mostly encountering workers rather than those financing the mines.

Why miners return when soldiers leave

Ghana's latest operations reveal a different challenge: keeping miners out of areas already cleared by security forces. On 15 October, a government task force raided illegal mining sites along the Tano River, near the Jema-Asekrom Forest Reserve, destroying 61 mining machines and arresting three suspects. Yet when officers returned three days later, miners had resumed operations along sections of the river, prompting the destruction of another 31 machines.

Illegal mining, known locally as galamsey, has devastated forests and polluted waterways. In October, President John Dramani Mahama reported that miners had penetrated 48 of Ghana's 288 forest reserves, identifying nine high-risk zones marked by environmental destruction and armed operators. Forest guards have faced deadly gunfire, while Mahama acknowledged that soldiers had also shot and killed people during operations.

Previous military operations had cleared several reserves, only for miners to return after troops withdrew. Mahama therefore ordered soldiers stationed in all nine high-risk reserves, which the government considers cleared. The shift toward sustained deployments raises the question of whether civilian authorities can eventually maintain control without a permanent military presence.

Why the gold trade survives military campaigns

Keeping soldiers in cleared mining areas can restrict where extraction takes place. It does little, however, to control where the gold travels afterward. Once extracted, the metal passes through traders, intermediaries and refineries, where repeated melting can obscure its origin. An October 2026 investigation found that gold from small-scale mines can be presented as recycled metal, allowing illegally sourced supplies to enter legitimate markets. Although international traceability systems cover much of industrial gold production, they capture only a small fraction of artisanal output.

Governments are beginning to address this weakness. In January 2026, Ghana's Gold Board announced plans to trace production from approximately 600 small-scale mines through the supply chain. By August, however, its national traceability system was still undergoing procurement, leaving its effectiveness untested. A June study by the International Institute for Strategic Studies also identified corruption, money laundering and regulatory weaknesses across ten gold-producing countries, emphasizing the need for stronger international cooperation.

Controlling the trade therefore requires more than securing mining territory. Verifying gold's origin, scrutinizing traders and refiners, and giving informal miners viable routes into legal markets would target incentives left untouched by raids. Soldiers can destroy a dredger in hours, but as long as gold revenues can pay for its replacement, military gains will remain vulnerable to reversal.