U.S. Treasury Sanctions Gold-Smuggling Network

By Rob Bates | December 11, 2024

The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has sanctioned 28 individuals and businesses it claims are involved in a global gold-smuggling and money-laundering network based in Zimbabwe.

OFAC said this global network is led by Kamlesh Pattni, a Kenyan businessman who was implicated in the Goldenberg gold-trading scandal that rocked Kenya in the 1990s. Pattni later fled to Zimbabwe, where he was also accused of illicitly importing gold and diamonds, and became an associate of Zimbabwe’s former ruler Robert Mugabe.

OFAC also sanctioned a long list of companies allegedly linked to Pattni, some of which have links to jewelry, gold, and diamonds: Sun Multinational, Marwa Investments, Fiza Gold & Bullion Trading, Golden Luxury Jewellery Trading, Ruhmeer Diamonds, Precious Bullion, Sun Star Travel & Tourism, Rubini Investment Group, Samaria Holdings, Suzan General Trading JLT, Manurama Limited, and Skorus Investments.

Dubai-based Memories Golden Jewellery LLC was sanctioned because of its ties to Sun Multinational. The full list can be seen here.

The U.K. also enacted new sanctions on Pattni and his associates.

Brad Brooks-Rubin, former special advisor to the U.S. State Department’s Office of the Sanctions Coordinator (and author of a recent guest editorial), tells JCK that this joint action “shows how complex and challenging due diligence on the gold supply chain can be—but how essential it is to get right. This is an urgent and direct reminder to jewelers and their suppliers to not just check the OFAC or U.K. sanctions lists periodically but to conduct proactive, integrated, and enhanced due diligence on those they are sourcing from.”

(Photo: Getty Images)