Illegal gold mining and the bandit economy

Zamfara hosts one of Nigeria's most significant goldfields, concentrated in the Anka and Bukkuyum LGAs. The combination of unregulated artisanal mining, illegal foreign-buyer networks (most notoriously, allegations of Chinese and Lebanese smuggling rings), and bandit taxation of mining sites has produced one of the largest documented illicit-economy linkages between Nigerian banditry and a single natural resource. Federal mining suspensions were imposed in 2019 (Buhari) and renewed in 2023 (Tinubu), with limited effect.