Ghana Establishes National Anti-Gold Smuggling Task Force to Reduce Revenue Losses by Billions
Ghana has set up a task group to stop trade in illegal gold.
Ghana’s President John Dramani Mahama has created the country’s first-ever national task group to fight gold smuggling. The goal is to get back the billions of dollars that are lost every year to the illegal trade. The task group, which is made up of police and military members, is part of a new effort by the government to protect the country’s gold wealth and stop illegal transfers.
Mahama stressed how big the problem was and how important it was to take bold action at the launch on Tuesday. He was talking about the $5 billion worth of gold that was exported in the first five months of 2025. “This is money that would not have come back to Ghana because traders would have taken it and kept the foreign exchange outside,” he said.
The task force was announced after the Ghana Gold Board (GoldBod), a centralized body to control and streamline gold trading, was set up earlier this year. Ghana has exported a record 55.7 metric tonnes of gold since GoldBod was created. This is a clear sign that the new body has helped improve formal trade routes.
To get people to work together, President Mahama announced a 10% reward plan for spies who give useful information that helps catch people smuggling gold. He said that the reward is meant to encourage openness and get people involved in the crackdown.
Ghana wants to make it easier to track gold across the whole country and switch all of its exports to pure gold by 2026. Setting up an ISO-certified assay laboratory to check the quality of the gold and a specialized manufacturing hub to add value before exporting are also part of the plan.
These steps are part of larger attempts in the region to get the most out of rising commodity prices. Some West African governments run by the military are taking extreme actions like seizing assets and changing mining laws. But democracies like Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire are choosing more structured reforms, such as higher royalties and better ways to share revenue.
Gold prices have gone up by 25% this year, reaching a high point of $3,500 an ounce in April. Ghana’s strong actions show that it wants to get its fair share of the global gold trade and create a more responsible, value-driven mining sector.
