News

From February 23 to 25, a training workshop dedicated to combating fraud and money laundering was held in Tengrela for mining cooperatives and gold buying and selling offices. This training was part of the project to support the security and development of artisanal gold mining as a factor of development and social cohesion in northern Côte d'Ivoire (SECORCI 2), funded by the European Union and implemented by Coginta.

The workshop, which brought together forty participants from the ten mining cooperatives supported by the project and three gold buying and selling offices, was co-facilitated by the National Financial Intelligence Processing Unit (CENTIF) and the Operational Counter-Terrorism Intelligence Center (CROAT). Over three days, discussions focused on combating gold mining fraud, money laundering, illicit financial flows, and the financing of terrorism.

Artisanal gold mining is a highly sensitive activity in this department bordering Mali, characterized by significant cross-border flows and an increased security threat due to the activities of criminal or armed groups. Controlling the flow of raw gold and funds is difficult but essential, both to prevent the financing of terrorism and, more broadly, to ensure that the Ivorian state can benefit from the economic returns generated by its mineral resources.

This training contributed to this effort: participants strengthened their knowledge of the legal framework for combating money laundering and terrorist financing, the specific vulnerabilities of the artisanal gold mining sector, and the requirements for governance, traceability, and security. At the end of the training, the participating organizations signed a code of conduct.

Mr. Edmond Yao Kouame, representative of the Basso Cooperative, welcomed the relevance of this initiative, which "will help us to effectively combat fraud and money laundering in our sector. From now on, we will demand traceability of our financing funds and will systematically declare all gold extracted on our sites to the Directorate of Mines."

Coginta, through the SECORCI project, is working to structure and professionalize the gold mining sector in the Tengrela department. This implementation will enable artisanal miners to better understand and defend their rights, meet legal, administrative, and fiscal requirements, and maximize economic benefits for the communities.