How to Sell Gold from Africa: The Complete Seller's Guide

The African gold seller's landscape

There is no shortage of interest in African gold. The continent produces over 800 tonnes per year, and international refineries, bullion banks, and family offices are actively seeking reliable supply. On paper, the opportunity for African sellers has never been larger. In practice, the market is comprehensively dysfunctional — not because buyers are absent, but because the infrastructure that separates legitimate buyers from fraudsters, brokers, and time-wasters is either invisible or nonexistent.

The realistic ratio, based on accumulated market experience, is approximately 20:1. For every genuine institutional buyer with capital, a mandate, and the operational capacity to complete a cross-border gold transaction, there are twenty entities who are some combination of the following: brokers without buyers, buyers without capital, fraudsters running advance-fee operations, curiosity-seekers, or intermediaries who believe they can manufacture a transaction by connecting you to someone else. The problem is that none of these entities self-identify as what they are. They all present as serious buyers. They all produce documentation — some of it sophisticated. They all speak the language of the trade.

The sellers who succeed in this environment share one characteristic: they approach the process with documentation before conversation. They understand that the gold itself — whatever its quality, fineness, or quantity — is secondary to the paper trail that establishes its provenance, purity, and legal status. Buyers who matter do not buy gold. They buy a documentation package that happens to have gold attached to it. The moment you internalise this, your probability of completing a legitimate transaction increases substantially.

This guide is written for sellers who are approaching international gold sales for the first time, or who have attempted sales and found themselves caught in cycles of requests, delays, and unrealised transactions. It covers every material element of the process: what documents you need before initiating contact, how to qualify a buyer before sharing anything sensitive, how to structure settlement to protect yourself, which carriers are appropriate, how gold is priced in the international market, and the specific fraud patterns that have cost African sellers significant sums.

Before you contact any buyer: get your documentation in order

The single most common reason legitimate transactions fail at the earliest stage is that the seller initiates contact before their documentation is complete. This signals one of two things to a professional buyer: either the seller is inexperienced, or the documentation cannot be obtained because the gold's provenance is irregular. Neither is a foundation for a transaction. Before you contact anyone — intermediary, platform, or direct buyer — the following documents must exist.

Independent assay certificate

An assay certificate is the independent, third-party verification of your gold's purity and weight. It is the single most important document in the package. Without it, no legitimate buyer will proceed. The assay must be conducted by an internationally recognised laboratory. The three most widely accepted are SGS, Bureau Veritas, and Intertek. Alex Stewart International is also accepted in some markets, and Genalysis has a strong reputation in the southern African circuit.

The process: you submit a representative sample of your gold to the laboratory, which assays it using fire assay or XRF methodology (fire assay is preferred for settlement-grade documentation), and issues a certificate within three to five business days. The certificate must state the seller entity's name, the date of sampling, a sample reference number, the weight of the sample, and the fineness expressed as parts per thousand. The laboratory's accreditation number must be present on the certificate. Cost ranges from USD 200 to USD 500 depending on urgency and the laboratory location. Rush processing is available at premium.

Most buyers accept assay certificates up to six months old for bar gold. For dust or irregular forms, many buyers will require a fresh assay at the point of transaction regardless of existing documentation. Budget for this possibility.

Mineral export permit

The mineral export permit is the document that establishes the legal right to export gold from the country of origin. Its specific form varies by jurisdiction, but every gold-producing African country requires one. The general process is consistent: apply to the national mineral authority, submit the assay certificate alongside your entity registration documents, provide buyer details and the destination country, and await issuance. Standard processing runs five to fifteen business days depending on the jurisdiction and the authority's current workload.

Key country contacts: in Ghana, applications go to the Minerals Commission for the Gold Export Licence, which is issued to Category A licensed gold exporters. In Tanzania, the Tanzania Minerals Audit Agency handles the export clearance form and mineral export permit, and declarations must be lodged through the Electronic Single Window system. In South Africa, the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy handles export permits under section 26 of the MPRDA, though most South African gold dealers operate through the licensed dealer framework rather than direct export permits. In Zimbabwe, the regime is distinct: all gold must first be sold to Fidelity Printers and Refiners, after which Fidelity issues the export certificate — individual export permits to private exporters are not available. In Mali, the Direction Nationale de la Géologie et des Mines issues gold export authorisations.

A critical principle across all jurisdictions: the permit names the exporter, the buyer, the quantity, the purity, and the destination country. Any mismatch between the permit and the assay certificate — in weight, fineness, or entity name — is sufficient grounds for customs rejection. Get both documents before the transaction is structured, not after.

Chain of custody records

International buyers are subject to Anti-Money Laundering regulations in their home jurisdictions. In Malaysia and across Asia, FATF requirements mandate that buyers demonstrate they know the provenance of the gold they purchase. Chain of custody records are the documents that satisfy this requirement. They must show the journey of the gold from extraction or first purchase to its current possession by the exporter.

For mine operators, this means the mining licence, production records (monthly output logs, if maintained), and any transportation manifests from mine site to current location. For aggregators — entities that purchase gold from multiple small-scale miners — the requirement is purchase receipts from each seller, ideally accompanied by the seller's documentation where available, and the aggregator's dealer licence. For traders who have purchased from prior exporters, the prior seller's documentation becomes part of your chain of custody package.

This is the document category that most first-time sellers underestimate. The assay certificate and export permit are procedurally straightforward — they are issued by institutions whose processes are defined. Chain of custody records require the seller to have maintained records proactively, often before they knew a sale was contemplated. If your records are incomplete, address this now, before approaching any buyer.

How to qualify a gold buyer before sharing documents

Once your documentation is in order, the next discipline is buyer qualification. This is the stage at which most sellers make the consequential mistakes — sharing documentation too early, with entities who have not demonstrated they are real buyers. The questions below should be asked of every potential buyer before you share an assay certificate or export permit.

The questions to ask

Are you the end buyer or a broker? This is the first question, and the answer shapes everything that follows. Brokers are not inherently a problem — some legitimate transactions are intermediated — but a broker who presents as an end buyer is one who either lacks understanding of the transaction or is concealing their position. A buyer who acknowledges they are sourcing on behalf of a principal should be able to provide documentation of the mandate they are operating under.

What is your entity type?The institutional gold market has a defined set of entity types: refineries, LBMA-accredited bullion dealers, family offices with direct commodity exposure, trading houses with physical delivery capability, and institutional dealers. Each has different operational requirements. A refinery buying feed material has different documentation requirements than a family office buying investment bars. Understanding the buyer's entity type helps you verify them.

Can you provide proof of funds?A bank comfort letter — issued by the buyer's bank, addressed to the transaction, confirming available funds — is the standard instrument. This is not a screenshot of an account balance. It is a formal bank-issued document on letterhead with a reference number. If a buyer cannot provide this, they are either not ready to transact or are not a real buyer.

What settlement structure do you propose? The only acceptable answers are escrow or letter of credit. Any proposal involving a direct wire transfer — particularly before shipment — should be refused immediately. The structure section below covers both instruments in detail.

Red flags that should end the conversation

The following behaviours, encountered at any stage of qualification, indicate you are not speaking to a legitimate buyer: requests for an NCND (Non-Circumvention Non-Disclosure Agreement) or IMFPA (Irrevocable Master Fee Protection Agreement) before the buyer has seen any documentation — these are instruments of the broker circuit, not the institutional market. Requests for “soft proof of product”: photographs of the gold, often posed with a newspaper or alongside the seller. No real institutional buyer requires photographs of gold to verify that gold exists. A request for you to travel to meet the buyer before any documentation has been exchanged — the first meeting in a legitimate international gold transaction is a documentation review, not a physical encounter. And, most conclusively: any price offer significantly above spot. A legitimate buyer does not offer a seller a premium above market price. If someone is offering you USD 2,000 per kilogram above the LBMA Fix for fully documented gold, they are not buying your gold.

Settlement structures that protect both parties

Settlement structure is the single most important protection a seller has. The gold trade has two legitimate structures for cross-border transactions: escrow and letter of credit. Every other payment mechanism — advance wire, staged transfers, cryptocurrency — carries risk that a professional seller should not accept.

Escrow

In an escrow structure, the buyer deposits the full transaction amount into a neutral third-party account held by a licensed escrow agent before the seller ships. The escrow agent holds the funds, confirms the deposit to both parties, and releases the funds to the seller only upon receipt of the airway bill and carrier confirmation of delivery. The seller's obligation: ship via an approved carrier and provide the airway bill to the escrow agent. The buyer's obligation: fund the escrow and accept delivery.

From the seller's perspective, escrow is preferable because it requires no bank infrastructure on the seller's side beyond a receiving account. Reputable escrow providers in the commodities space include Escrow.com for smaller transactions and specialist commodity escrow agents for transactions above USD 500,000. The escrow agreement must name the carrier, define the delivery location, and specify the document that triggers release — typically the carrier's airway bill combined with delivery confirmation.

The non-negotiable condition for the seller: do not ship until the escrow is funded and the escrow agent has confirmed the funds in writing. A buyer who asks you to ship “while the escrow is being set up” is either incompetent or fraudulent. In either case, the answer is no.

Letter of Credit

A documentary letter of credit is an instrument issued by the buyer's bank, guaranteeing payment to the seller upon the seller's presentation of specified documents. In a gold transaction, the typical document set required for LC drawdown includes the commercial invoice, assay certificate, export permit, carrier airway bill, and cargo insurance certificate. The LC is confirmed by the seller's bank — meaning the seller's bank independently guarantees payment regardless of the buyer's bank's solvency.

Letters of credit require the seller to have a relationship with a bank capable of confirming LCs. In many African markets, this is not a trivial requirement — not every local bank has the correspondent relationships necessary. If your bank cannot confirm LCs, escrow is the appropriate mechanism.

The carrier: your insurance and your protection

Physical gold cannot be shipped via DHL, FedEx, standard airfreight, or passenger baggage. Any buyer who suggests these channels either does not understand the market or is directing you toward a shipping method that they control and you do not. The specialist precious metals carriers — Brinks, Malca-Amit, and Loomis International — exist precisely for this purpose.

The process with a specialist carrier is operationally straightforward. You engage the carrier — typically through their nearest office or via a freight forwarder with specialist metals experience — and they collect the gold at your location or at the nearest hub, weigh and verify it against your documentation, insure it for full replacement value, and transport it via their secure network to the destination. The carrier issues an airway bill at the point of taking custody. This document is your proof of shipment.

The airway bill is the document that triggers payment in both escrow and LC structures. It confirms that the gold left your custody and is in transit. This is why it represents your leverage: once the carrier has the gold and you have the airway bill, you have demonstrated performance. Do not surrender the airway bill — either physically or by presenting it to the escrow agent or bank — until the payment mechanism is confirmed operational.

Carrier costs vary by route and quantity. As a general benchmark, transporting 10kg of gold from Accra or Nairobi to Kuala Lumpur via a specialist carrier costs approximately USD 800–1,500 including insurance. This cost should be accounted for in the transaction pricing, and responsibility for it should be agreed in writing before the transaction is executed.

Pricing: understanding what your gold is worth

The international reference price for gold is the LBMA (London Bullion Market Association) PM Fix — published each business day at approximately 15:00 London time, it represents the price in USD per troy ounce at which LBMA member banks are willing to trade. It is the benchmark against which all legitimate international gold transactions are priced.

A critical unit clarification: the LBMA Fix is quoted per troy ounce. One troy ounce is 31.1035 grams. One kilogram contains 32.1507 troy ounces. At the time of writing, spot gold trades at approximately USD 3,200 per troy ounce. This means one kilogram of 999.9 fine gold is worth approximately USD 102,880 at spot. For gold of lower fineness — 995 fine, for instance — the price is adjusted proportionally: USD 102,880 × (995/1000) = approximately USD 102,365 per kilogram.

In the international market, legitimate buyers of documented gold pay a percentage of spot. For investment-grade bars (995 fine or above) with a complete documentation package, the realistic range is 92%–98% of spot depending on form, documentation completeness, and the buyer's own commercial requirements. The spread below spot reflects the buyer's cost of refinement (if required), logistics, insurance, counterparty risk, and profit margin.

In the African market context, a price of USD 5,000 per kilogram below spot — which is approximately 95% of spot at current prices — is a competitive and legitimate price for fully documented gold. Any seller being offered USD 15,000 or USD 20,000 per kilogram below spot should understand this reflects either an undocumented product attracting a significant risk discount, or a preliminary “offer” from an entity that has no intention of closing.

Common fraud patterns that target African gold sellers

Fraud targeting African gold sellers is systematic, well-organised, and has cost sellers enormous sums. The patterns are consistent enough that understanding them is protective. The following are the most prevalent.

Advance fee fraud

The advance fee pattern typically begins with apparent success: a buyer is found, documentation is reviewed favourably, and a transaction is agreed in principle. Then a series of costs emerges. There is an inspection fee — the buyer needs to send a technical representative, and the flight and hotel must be paid in advance by the seller. Or a certification fee: the receiving country requires a special import certification, cost USD 3,000. Or a customs clearance deposit. Or an “export bond” required by the buyer's bank. Each cost, individually, is plausible. Collectively, they are the mechanism. No legitimate buyer requires you to pay costs on their behalf. If any cost is being charged to you that does not appear in your original logistics and documentation budget, you are in an advance fee operation.

Fake bank documentation

Counterfeit bank comfort letters and proof-of-funds documents are readily available and have reached a quality level that makes them visually indistinguishable from legitimate instruments without verification. The defence is verification, not inspection: contact the issuing bank directly, using contact information from the bank's official website — not the letterhead, which can be fabricated — and ask them to confirm the document. Any legitimate buyer's bank will confirm a comfort letter to a counterparty on request.

“Visit our office” scams

A well-structured variant of the advance fee pattern involves an invitation to visit the buyer's offices in Dubai, Singapore, or another financial centre to “complete the transaction in person.” The seller travels — at their own expense — and arrives to find a professional-looking operation: offices, staff, documentation. The transaction is then stalled, and the pressure begins. The seller, having spent money and time, is in a psychologically compromised position. Additional fees are introduced. The gold never ships, or ships under circumstances the seller did not agree to. Do not travel to meet a gold buyer before a settlement structure is in place and the first payment has been demonstrated.

Fake shipping bookings

In this pattern, the fraudster directs the seller to use a specific shipping company — which they control or are affiliated with. The seller delivers the gold to the shipper, receives a plausible airway bill, and waits for payment. The gold disappears. The airway bill is fake. The shipper is either non-existent or complicit. The defence: use only internationally verified specialist carriers, booked through the carrier's official channels or through a verified freight forwarder. Never use a carrier recommended by the buyer.

The OnePiece active mandate

OnePiece operates a current active mandate for investment-grade physical gold from African producers. The current mandate is for a minimum of 10 kilograms per transaction, with fineness of 995 or above, with an independent assay certificate from SGS, Bureau Veritas, or Intertek, and a valid mineral export permit from the country of origin.

The process is documentation-first. Sellers submit a documentation summary — assay certificate (or a recent one, with the understanding that a fresh assay may be required at closing), export permit status, and a brief chain of custody description. We review the documentation against the buyer's requirements and confirm fit within 48 hours. If there is fit, we introduce the seller to the buyer under a structured process that includes escrow settlement and specialist carrier logistics.

We do not charge advance fees. We do not ask for proof of product photographs. We do not ask sellers to travel. If your documentation is in order and your supply qualifies, the conversation begins with documentation and ends with settlement.