Every year, illicit gold worth more than $30 billion flows across the globe, including gold originating in conflict zones and authoritarian states. Much of it is smuggled to gold-trading centers such as Dubai or Hong Kong before silently entering the global market. Unlike drug trafficking, the trade in illicit gold does not register to many in the West as an emergency because its primary victims are not in wealthy countries. But this trade is underwriting deadly crises around the world. It is financing both sides of the Sudanese civil war; the authoritarian regime of Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela; transnational criminal networks, such as Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua, which the United States recently designated a foreign terrorist organization; multiple armed groups in the Democratic Republic of the Congo; and Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Over the past decade, gold has nearly tripled in price, reaching record highs earlier this month. One can smuggle more than $1 million worth of gold in nothing more than a briefcase, and demand for it is always strong because, unlike critical minerals, gold is universally valuable. Illicit gold can also be melted and enter formal markets with gold that is legally mined. As a result, profiteers are searching for and extracting gold under worsening humanitarian and environmental conditions.

The illicit gold trade directly affects U.S. national security because it is fueling armed conflicts and transnational criminal enterprises. And because the gold is being laundered into global supply chains, it threatens global business risks for banks, tech companies, and jewelers. The United States, global financial institutions, various regulators, and U.S. allies such as the United Kingdom and the European Union have the capabilities to help curb this trade. They must use them.

These players should help the largest gold-trading centers, where most illicit gold is laundered—principally the United Arab Emirates but also China, India, Switzerland, and Turkey—reform. The UAE is of particular concern. In 2022, the country imported and refined an estimated 400 tons of smuggled gold before selling it on global markets. Banks and regulators may find willing local partners: some of the trading centers are facing financial hurdles as a result of smuggling and other money-laundering issues, and they want to increase their credibility in the global financial system. If they meet certain due diligence standards, banks and regulators should offer them financial incentives, including positive evaluations and memberships to global gold organizations, which would improve their reputation and increase their share of global trade.

The United States, led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, should also work with the gold industry to establish and lead a public-private illicit gold initiative that can publish real-time data on the gold trade and independently monitor and certify trading centers. Rubio, together with U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, should create an illicit-gold task force that can investigate and sanction gold-trafficking networks and exchange data on these networks with banks and refiners. In the absence of such measures, illicit gold will further infiltrate global markets and fund war and criminal gangs.

Although artisanally mined gold provides a livelihood for mining communities in many countries, many small-scale mines situated in conflict areas or authoritarian states frequently employ children as young as eight years old and damage the environment by using corrosive chemicals, including mercury and cyanide. Gold from such mines is then usually smuggled to neighboring........

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