London’s vast gold market gives the UK leverage – and responsibility – on illicit gold
A coalition of 34 civil society organisations has called for urgent action on tainted gold ahead of the UK’s Illicit Finance Summit, warning that London’s central role in the global gold trade gives the UK a particular responsibility to confront the risks in its own gold market. Gold linked to corruption, conflict, organised crime and human rights abuse should not be able to pass through formal markets with a responsible label attached.
The warning comes ahead of the UK-hosted Illicit Finance Summit, which will take place in London on 23 and 24 June 2026 and will focus on illicit gold alongside property and crypto-assets as key channels through which dirty money is moved globally. The UK government has said the summit will bring together governments, civil society organisations and the private sector in an effort to tackle the dirty money flow.
London is the world’s largest centre for over-the-counter gold trading. More than £860 billion in gold is traded there each week, according to data published by the London Bullion Market Association (LBMA), which oversees the market. Because gold is portable, high-value and difficult to trace once it enters formal supply chains, the UK is significantly exposed to illicit gold flows. The UK government has a direct interest in ensuring that tainted gold is identified, scrutinised and kept out of formal markets.
“Illicit gold is not only a financial crime issue, it’s also a human rights issue,” said Anneke Van Woudenberg, Executive Director of corporate watchdog RAID. “Responsible gold traded in London needs stronger oversight, tougher audits and real consequences where refiners fail to address links to violence or human rights abuses.”
RAID has long raised concerns about the gap between the LBMA’s responsible sourcing claims and the harsh reality faced by communities living near gold mines. In 2020 and 2022, RAID raised formal complaints with the LBMA about gold linked to serious human rights abuses at the North Mara gold mine in Tanzania, entering London’s market and being certified as responsibly sourced. An estimated 77 to 100 people have been allegedly shot and killed by Tanzanian police assigned to the mine over the past decade. Many others have been injured.
The issues were not limited to one case. In 2024, eight civil society groups wrote to the LBMA to raise wider concerns about oversight of “responsible gold” in London’s market, including ineffective auditing, limited transparency over gold origins, weak complaints processes and the risk that illegally mined gold can be reclassified as recycled gold.
The push for stronger oversight extends beyond the LBMA. In letters to the Responsible Jewellery Council and the Responsible Minerals Initiative, published today, RAID and other civil society organisations called for stronger transparency across responsible sourcing standards and due diligence tools. The letters urge these bodies to require greater disclosure of suppliers in red flag locations, strengthen scrutiny of gold and other high-risk mineral supply chains and ensure certification systems provide meaningful insight into risks on the ground, not just assurance to markets.
The adequacy of these certification systems is also now facing legal scrutiny. In 2022, Tanzanian human rights claimants brought a legal case in the UK against the LBMA, alleging that it had wrongfully certified gold from the North Mara gold mine as “responsibly sourced”. The case, which is expected to proceed to trial in October 2026, is significant because it puts industry certification bodies under scrutiny for their role in enabling companies and markets to present gold as “responsible” – despite unresolved human rights concerns in the supply chain.
Other UK accountability routes are also being tested. In December 2025, the UK National Contact Point – which examines complaints under the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises – accepted a complaint against UK gold mining company, AngloGold Ashanti, for further examination, concerning alleged harms linked to the forced relocation of communities near the Kibali gold mine in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
For the Illicit Finance Summit to really matter, governments and industry need to move beyond general commitments. The NGO call to action is clear: current levels of ambition do not yet match the scale of the illicit gold threat. For the UK, global leadership starts at home. It cannot credibly chair a summit on illicit gold while treating London’s gold market as separate from the problem. Stronger oversight of refiners and trading hubs, credible complaints and remedy mechanisms, and real consequences for weak responsible sourcing are essential to stop high-risk gold from gaining legitimacy through formal markets.
For the full NGO briefing, see here.