When Tigray became a ‘Wild West’ of illegal gold mining, Canadian firms staked a claim
How gold tarnished Tigray
Once a war zone, this region of Ethiopia became a ‘Wild West’ of illegal mining and unsafe labour. Sites licensed by Canadian firms were at the heart of it. The Globe investigates
Claire Wilmot and Ashenafi Endale
The Globe and Mail
Published November 13, 2025
The Mato Bula gold mine has steadily worn away the landscape in Tigray, northern Ethiopia, over the years. This is how it looked from space in October of 2011, December, 2020, and January, 2024.
Google Earth
20
At a military checkpoint in Ethiopia’s Tigray region, an area reckoning with the aftermath of one of the 21st century’s deadliest wars, heavily armed soldiers ordered a reporter on assignment with The Globe and Mail and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism to pull over. After a brief interrogation, she was told in no uncertain terms to turn back. Only people with written permission from the military controlling the area could go any farther.
During an ensuing negotiation, a dusty pickup truck skidded to a halt. Its driver, a Chinese national, was accompanied by a local interpreter dressed in army fatigues. In the back were vinyl sacks, pickaxes and half a dozen men. The interpreter handed a piece of paper to one of the soldiers, who waved them on.
The truck accelerated away from the checkpoint and toward the sites the reporter had been forbidden from approaching: two vast gold mines. On paper, they are licensed to East Africa Metals (EAM), a Canadian publicly traded company.
For more than a year, these sites, known as Mato Bula and Da Tambuk, were both home to illegal mining operations, according to an investigation by The Globe, in partnership with TBIJ. They were part of a postwar gold rush in Tigray now worth billions, according to records from Ethiopia’s national bank. The industry has ruined the land, stoked deadly violence and could fund the Horn of Africa’s next devastating war.
Canadian companies hold most foreign mining licences in Tigray, where an emerging resource economy must contend with a thriving illicit one.
Reporters spent weeks on the ground in Tigray, speaking to dozens of industry insiders, senior government officials, military and security personnel, local artisanal miners, members of affected communities and experts from around the world.
The investigation included reviewing hundreds of pages of leaked documents and financial statements, combing through public records and analyzing satellite imagery of illegal mines across Tigray.
EAM has said publicly that it is developing legal industrial mines at Mato Bula and Da Tambuk alongside its business partners.
But companies doing business in Tigray face challenges that stem from the area’s internal conflicts. From January, 2024, to June, 2025, gold was being illegally excavated by former soldiers working alongside Chinese miners whose machinery was paid for by unknown foreign investors, according to 16 artisanal miners, seven former security officials, four government sources and five mining investors and industry insiders.
The sites are guarded by military men who control vast smuggling networks, which are in turn fuelling yet more violence across a region already devastated by conflict.
Open this photo in gallery:
Farmers in Tigray check out an abandoned tank in 2021, when Ethiopian, Eritrean and Tigrayan separatist forces were locked in a civil war. It would end in peace talks the following year.
YASUYOSHI CHIBA/AFP via Getty Images
Open this photo in gallery:
Gold sellers in Axum, once the capital of a wealthy kingdom in Tigray, have seen rising global prices for the metal recently. That’s also encouraged more mining in the region.
Claire Wilmot/The Globe and Mail
Part of what is driving the explosion of illegal mining in Tigray is the sky-high price of gold around the world. The United States, China and others are scrambling to buy up gold reserves.
EAM said it “categorically denies the suggestion it is implicated in activities that violate Canadian, Ethiopian or international law.” It acknowledged that mining operations appear to have taken place at the sites, including potentially by foreigners, but said they are acting as individuals, not as representatives of any company. EAM also said operations on the sites were suspended and its subsidiaries and development partners were unable to access them.
It is not only EAM’s sites that became hubs of illegal gold production. Since the end of the war, large illicit mines have sprung up across Tigray, fuelled by foreign capital and enabled by local military men.
The chemicals being used to pry gold from the earth are poisoning the local land and water. People living nearby have reported strange skin conditions. Their crops and animals are dying.
The political fight to control Tigray’s resources means the stakes are high. Journalists reporting on these matters have been detained and threatened with violence. Whistle-blowers have been intimidated, assaulted and threatened with death. Tigrayans protesting the looting of their land have been injured and killed.
For their safety, The Globe is not naming most of this investigation’s sources. But their testimonies paint the clearest picture yet of an illicit industry that threatens to remake Tigray in the image of neighbouring Sudan – where armed groups and foreign capital have scaled up the mining operations that help sustain its devastating war.
These artisanal miners near the Eritrean border pan for gold manually, without the heavy machinery that the newer, larger operations use. The young men were displaced by the war.
Claire Wilmot/The Globe and Mail
The gold rush
Gold has always been a precious commodity – but right now, it is worth more than ever. It currently sells for more than $5,000 an ounce – and across Tigray, the gold rush can be seen everywhere. Along the highway that links the regional capital Mekelle with the gold hub of Shire, young children brandish small bags of dust and nuggets at passing cars.
Not long ago, this region was the scene of a brutal civil war that broke out in late 2020 between Ethiopia’s federal government and Tigray’s leading political party.
By the time a peace deal was signed two years later, more than half a million people may have been killed, according to the African Union’s lead mediator, Olusegun Obasanjo, and estimates from Ghent University.
Before the war, Tigray’s mining industry was smaller and more tightly regulated. For foreign companies, licences were granted federally and implemented regionally.
Meanwhile, licences for “artisanal” mining – which permit small-scale methods, like digging and panning for gold by hand – were granted by local and regional governments.
But the war drove a wedge between the federal and regional governments, and fragmented political authority within Tigray. In its aftermath, as an economic crisis took hold, opportunistic military men took control of key gold-producing sites.
The Adwa mountains cut across the gold-rich northwest of Tigray, prime territory for industrial mining aided by the military and foreign investors.
Claire Wilmot/The Globe and Mail
Gold mining in Tigray became a multibillion-dollar industry – and those who controlled the most profitable sites gained sudden political power. Unnamed “investors” from outside the region, spotting their opportunity, began to cut deals to expand production and smuggle gold out of Tigray, 16 local miners and 11 former government and security officials told TBIJ.
The result was the expansion of sites such as Mato Bula and Da Tambuk into sprawling quarries where artisanal miners, in violation of laws and regulations, began to use heavy machinery and toxic chemicals to unearth gold. Many people whom reporters spoke to were clear that mines such as these could not be built without the approval of local military leaders involved in the illicit gold trade.
EAM said it does not engage with any military or paramilitary organizations and has no involvement with armed actors in the region.
“The gold economy is fuelling conflict and empowering armed actors in Ethiopia,” said Ahmed Soliman, a senior research fellow at Chatham House. “We should have seen these resources being used to rebuild the region. Instead, they are being misappropriated.”
EAM said that developing mineral properties includes a range of activities that do not always require access to the sites, and said it does not construct mines.
‘This is the Wild West’
While a number of Canadian companies hold mining exploration licences in Tigray, EAM’s subsidiaries are the only ones permitted to develop large-scale industrial mines. In so doing, EAM has enlisted the help of a China-registered firm called Tibet Huayu, according to the company’s filings. As well as promoting the projects to potential Chinese investors, it is covering the two mines’ construction costs. Stock-exchange filings show it has spent at least $2-million on the projects since 2019.
According to the companies’ public filings on the TSX-V and the Shanghai Stock Exchange, the mines are not yet operational. Neither company has reported any revenue from the mines.
But, according to artisanal miners who worked on site, gold brokers who received the metal, and security officials who guard operations, Mato Bula and Da Tambuk were already producing gold. Both sites were hubs of illegal artisanal extraction for more than a year.
Heavy machinery has been visible in satellite imagery of both sites since January, 2024.
Justin Lynch of Conflict Insights Group, a research organization that has analyzed images of both sites, said they show “clear signs of expansion from 2024 to 2025.” He added that more equipment associated with large-scale artisanal mining appeared between January and November, 2024.
According to four artisanal miners who have witnessed the expansion, as well as a government official, two former security officers and an individual involved in smuggling, most equipment has been brought to the site by Chinese miners, who ramped up production midway through 2024.
Early in 2024, Adi Gozomo had a rock crusher and excavator paid for by unnamed foreign investors. The site is licensed to East Africa Metals for exploration purposes.
Claire Wilmot/The Globe and Mail
Three investors with first-hand knowledge of site activities since EAM acquired its licences also told reporters that the expansion of these operations has been financed by EAM’s Chinese business partners. They said Chinese miners employed by EAM’s partners and subsidiaries have been mining on these sites, alongside some Tigrayan military officers, for around a year – and that the gold has been moved out of the region.
According to five insiders – an investor, two artisanal miners, a smuggler and a senior government official with knowledge of these transactions – the miners in question worked for Silk Road Investments, a company wholly owned by Tibet Huayu, EAM’s business partner at Mato Bula and Da Tambuk. Ten other sources told reporters that miners at the sites worked for Tigray Resources, a company jointly owned by EAM and Tibet Huayu.
EAM said it “unequivocally rejects the suggestion that it, or any of its subsidiaries or affiliated business partners, financed or facilitated illegal artisanal mining activities.”
Tibet Huayu did not respond to requests for comment.
In June, Tigray’s new president, Tadesse Werede, dispatched a task force to seize mining assets and enforce temporary pauses on mining actions across the region. His supporters, drawn from one faction of a split in the region’s leadership, say the move is meant to bring the illicit economy to heel. His critics say it is a means of asserting his authority over all sites.
A colonel loyal to the new president maintains control over Mato Bula and Da Tambuk, though sources near the sites say machinery has changed hands in recent months, and miners working for the Chinese companies are not currently present. The task force was expected to conclude in the coming weeks. But worsening violence on Tigray’s southern border, which experts fear will erupt into a larger conflict, may cause further delays.
“This is the Wild West,” said Mr. Soliman of Chatham House.
The China connection
EAM’s links to China go back as far as the company itself. Shortly after its creation in 2012, it acquired exploration licences in Tigray – including for Mato Bula and Da Tambuk – from a company called Beijing Donia Resources.
Thirteen years on, EAM says it has not made a penny from its Ethiopia projects. But since the war ended, it has received often-anonymous cash injections from other companies – known as private placements – worth at least $7.5-million.
Two of these, totalling $1.1-million, originated from a Chinese company called Sinotech Minerals Exploration Co. Ltd., according to three investors familiar with the terms of the arrangement. They said the money had been paid by individuals who work with another Canadian company called Nickel North Exploration Co., which Sinotech partly owns.
EAM said that Nickel North has never made a private placement to EAM. When asked if the payments in question came from individuals associated with Nickel North or Sinotech, the company said it could not disclose the information without the investors’ consent. Nickel North and Sinotech did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
In June, EAM secured a $5.5-million private placement – this time with a new private company, Anchises Capital LLC, registered in California. Anchises executives also have ties to China, according to two industry insiders and business registry documents.
Linking these entities is one man: a businessman called Jingbin Wang. He is chairman of Sinotech, chairman of Nickel North, former chairman of Beijing Donia and chairman of the board of directors at EAM.
Mr. Wang is also the chief geologist for Zijin Mining Group, a Chinese enterprise that has a 55-per-cent interest in a third mine licensed to an EAM subsidiary.
He also holds key roles in government agencies responsible for China’s critical minerals strategy. And copper, a vital mineral for the green transition, is found alongside gold in the earth at some of EAM’s Tigray mines, according to EAM and Tibet Huayu’s statements. The Canadian government has limited Chinese control of Canadian critical minerals companies, including a Lithium company owned by EAM’s chief executive officer and Dr. Wang’s business partner, Andrew Lee Smith.
EAM’s links to China
Jingbin Wang – chairman of Sinotech, chairman of Nickel North, former chairman of Beijing Donia and chairman of the board of directors at EAM – holds key roles in government agencies
responsible for China’s critical minerals strategy
Majority
owner
Nickel North
Exploration Co.
Sinotech Minerals
Exploration Co. Ltd.
Chairman
Chairman
Alleged payments
from individuals
Majority owner
Jingbin
Wang
Former
chairman
Chairman
Mining
licences
East Africa
Metals
Beijing Donia
Resources
30% owner
Business partners
on Tigray mines
Tigray
Resources
70%
owner
Silk Road
Investments
Tibet Huayu
100%
owner
the globe and mail, Source: The Bureau of
Investigative Journalism
Nickel North, Sinotech, Anchises and Jingbin Wang did not respond to requests for comment.
EAM said that no copper is expected to be recovered from Da Tambuk and is not present “in economically significant amounts” at Mato Bula.
Days after The Globe and TBIJ presented its findings to EAM, the company applied for a management cease trade order, which means it can delay filing its statements for the most recent financial year. It said the order was unrelated to reporters’ questions.
EAM published its statements in mid-September, and the cease trade order has been lifted. In the new filings, EAM says the continuation of the project is contingent on its ability to access its sites.
For many artisanal miners in Tigray, life in makeshift camps offers at least some path out of the destitution caused by the war. But it can just as easily put their lives at risk from dangerous chemicals.
Claire Wilmot/The Globe and Mail
‘A captive work force’
When TBIJ asked miners at another, smaller EAM-licensed site who had paid for their excavators and rock crushers, most kept quiet. Those who did speak referred to anonymous “investors” from abroad, but did not name a specific company.
Nearby at the same site, a miner sat on the ground and swirled pearls of mercury over a slurry of dirt and gold – a way of extracting the metal from the ore by hand. The Globe is not naming this miner because she fears retribution for speaking to the media.
The gold trade was new to her, she explained: Her family had been left destitute by the war, so she, like so many, was forced to find an alternative income.
Yet for miners like her, gold is far from lucrative. After the investors and the military men took their cut, she was left with just enough to keep her and her family fed. Her situation isn’t unique. These profit-sharing deals between investors and the military can leave the miners themselves – already risking their health and safety to eke out a living – with very little.
Just down the hill from this miner was a large metal structure that sifts ore and mercury through a series of sieves. The process typically extracts only about 30 per cent of gold in the ore, so the runoff that pools at the bottom of the structure is then treated with cyanide.
These processes present serious dangers. Mercury is a toxic chemical that accumulates in the body and even in small amounts can cause neurological damage, skin conditions and loss of vision. It can be especially harmful to unborn babies and infants. Cyanide, meanwhile, is a poison that can seriously damage the brain, heart and nervous system.
Open this photo in gallery:
Mercury is a silvery liquid metal that binds easily to particles of gold, and can be separated from it later. That makes small-scale mining cheaper, but far more toxic.
Francis Kokoroko/Reuters
In the type of illegal activity seen across Tigray, the use of these chemicals is far more dangerous than in industrial mining, which is bound by regulations designed to keep workers safe. Rules around the containment of runoffs, for instance, shield both miners and the surrounding environment from severe harm. Here, there is no such protection.
EAM said: “Neither EAM, its officers, employees, contractors, or partners have engaged in transactions introducing equipment or chemicals at the target areas.” The company said it was not responsible for any environmental harm.
The ecological crisis gripping the region has been extensively documented. A confidential legal report, obtained by TBIJ, detailed the widespread use of chemicals near sources of drinking water. One miner who lives near a mine showed us welts covering her hands. In a village downstream, another said two children have died from illnesses she attributes to cyanide.
“Without these chemicals, we don’t earn enough,” she said. “But they are also killing us.”
People in Tigray’s capital, Mekelle, have fresh memories of the fighting that tore Tigray apart. There is a war monument on the highway to Shire, a hub for the postwar gold trade.
Claire Wilmot/The Globe and Mail
A country at odds
At first, little of the illegally mined gold in Tigray stayed in Ethiopia for very long. Most of it was roughly refined in Shire and then smuggled out of the country through Eritrea to be sold around the world.
Last summer, however, this changed when federal politicians moved to take control of an industry they said was empowering some of their Tigrayan rivals.
According to an internal report compiled by the Federal Ministry of Mines, which was obtained by TBIJ, the National Bank of Ethiopia purchased just more than 18,000 kilograms of gold from Tigray’s artisanal miners over the past year. This is nearly 30 times the amount Tigray was projected to legally produce in the same period.
The conclusions are clear: The vast majority of Tigrayan gold that made its way to Addis Ababa last year was of illicit provenance. Ethiopia generated nearly US$3.5-billion from gold exports last year, according to the above report, the vast majority of which was reportedly mined in Tigray.
Smugglers and brokers told reporters that most of the gold, rather than being taken across borders, was now being moved to government purchasing sites, with federal officers complicit. They also alleged that some gold sold in Tigray was actually smuggled from other conflict-affected countries, notably Sudan and Congo.
“There are people who are known to participate in this network from top to bottom among government and security officials,” Tigray’s former interim president Getachew Reda said last year.
Ethiopia’s federal government, Tigray’s regional government and a military spokesperson did not reply to requests for comment.
The region’s shifting politics may also be warding off the bigger mining companies. An employee formerly with the Newmont Corporation, one of the world’s largest gold mining firms, told TBIJ it did not plan to return to the region any time soon despite holding licences there.
This presents a problem for the “junior” companies (a category EAM falls into), which typically operate by selling their prospects on to bigger buyers.
Seventeen centuries ago, Axum’s adoption of Christianity paved the way for the modern Ethiopian Orthodox faith. It still thrives here today, hence the gold crosses at this Axum shop. Many religious relics and houses of worship were lost to the Tigrayan war.
Claire Wilmot/The Globe and Mail
‘They make the chaos’
At a mining camp near Shire, a young woman told reporters that her sister’s six-month-old baby had recently died of a mysterious illness. The child was buried without a clear cause of death having been established, but she believes it was because of chemicals that leached into the drinking water.
Tigray’s gold rush has benefitted a few, but for countless others it has brought death and disillusionment. Dozens have been killed in clashes at mining sites, and more will suffer long-term effects of toxic land. Gold has transformed Ethiopia’s political landscape – and as its value continues to rise in an increasingly uncertain global economy, so too will the incentives to expand production at all costs.
The future of EAM’s projects is uncertain. Tigray’s new interim president is trying to consolidate control over mining, and many of the region’s larger artisanal projects appear to have been paused. Equipment at some of the larger sites, including Mato Bula and Da Tambuk, appear to have been handed over from Chinese to Tigrayan miners. Whether this indicates a material change in who benefits from – and finances – the sites is not clear. But whoever controls these sites moving forward, the root problems are likely to persist.
“What we now see in Tigray is not just an environmental, economic and security crisis of a colossal scale,” Mr. Getachew told TBIJ. “It will also help to precipitate a regional crisis. Those [benefiting from the gold trade] have a vested interest in destabilizing the region, because it is better to fish in troubled waters.”
Sitting under dim lights in a bar in Shire, an ex-soldier told reporters how he quit the army several months ago, angered by the corruption he saw throughout the ranks. But he seemed resigned to the fact that illegal gold mining will only continue to spread across the region.
“Tigrayan commanders, federal officers, foreigners […] they make the chaos and then they profit from the chaos,” he said.
“They all benefit. Except the people of Tigray.”
The Bureau of Investigative Journalism is an independent, not-for-profit organization based in London, U.K. Reporting for this article was supported by the Pulitzer Center.
All that glitters: More from The Globe and Mail
The Decibel podcast
What’s been propelling gold and silver prices so high this fall? Blame central banks, the Trump administration and AI, among other factors. Reporter Tim Kiladze spoke with The Decibel about the market forces at work. Subscribe for more episodes.
Extractive industries in Canada
Carney to add mining and energy projects to fast-track list, sources say
Canada to stockpile graphite and scandium to disrupt Chinese domination
Barrick to double down on North America, vows to improve safety record
Sign up for our Morning Update newsletter.Start your day with context and insight on the biggest stories shaping our lives, written by Danielle Groen
Sign upExplore newsletters
Report an editorial error
Report a technical issue
Editorial code of conduct
Comments
Read or post comments (20)
Related stories