Congo’s Conflict Gold Gives the ADF a Self-Financing War Machine
Updated: 22 hours ago
The Allied Democratic Forces earns most of its income from gold mined in eastern Congo, according to a new investigation by The Sentry. The Islamic State-aligned group controls mine sites, coerces workers and sells through traders connected to Ugandan refining and export networks.
The Sentry, an investigative organization that tracks conflict finance, estimates the ADF produces between $1 million and $1.6 million in gold each year from mining sites around Manguredjipa in North Kivu alone. The group controls other gold-bearing territory across eastern Congo, so that figure captures only part of the trade.
The findings identify a source of income that survives battlefield losses. Taking an ADF camp does not stop buyers from purchasing gold extracted under its control.
A war economy beneath the battlefield
The ADF pledged allegiance to Islamic State in 2019. Joint Congolese-Ugandan operations launched in 2021 fragmented the organization but failed to eliminate it. The Sentry estimates the group still fielded 600 to 700 combatants in February 2026.
Joint military operations pushed the ADF into smaller mobile units, while late-2024 sanctions disrupted outside support. The group increased its reliance on local revenue.
Gold now supplies the majority of its funds, according to the report. Cocoa trading, extortion and kidnapping add more revenue. That mix has reduced the ADF’s dependence on Islamic State transfers and made the insurgency harder to isolate from abroad.
The system rests on coercion. Miners and prospectors told investigators that ADF units abducted people to extract, transport and sell gold. Others cooperated for payment. Traders, transporters and intermediaries then moved the metal through commercial hubs in eastern Congo and into Ugandan refining and export networks.
Melting, mixing and relabeling gold can conceal its origin once it enters commercial supply chains, making the buyers and intermediaries critical to tracing ADF income.
Follow the gold, not only the gunmen
Buyers of untraceable gold and exporters unable to establish its origin allow proceeds from coerced mining to enter international markets.
The Sentry’s Justyna Gudzowska called for action against “the financiers, gold traders, and facilitators” sustaining the network, including payment tracing and stronger checks at refineries.
Uganda sits at the center of that challenge. The Sentry says gold from ADF-controlled areas continues to flow there even as Ugandan troops fight the same armed group inside Congo. John Prendergast, the organization’s co-founder, called for accountability along that route.
Miners face abduction and coercion while intermediaries move the gold into regional markets. Protecting those workers and identifying the businesses buying their output are central to stopping the trade.
The Sentry’s investigation calls for accountability along the export route. Authorities in Congo and Uganda must establish where gold comes from, protect mining communities and pursue the traders financing the ADF.
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