We know about conflict diamonds, but what about conflict gold
One of the most shocking findings is related to 4-5 tonnes of gold, gold bars coated silver smuggled out of Morocco, arriving in Dubai declared as gold ... The fact that our final conclusion would mean in simple words the risk of conflict minerals or conflict gold entering Dubai is extremely high.Amjad Rihan, Former Ernst & Young employee
Amjad Rihan is a former partner in the international auditing firm, Ernst & Young. He audited one of the world's biggest gold refineries -- Kaloti Jewellry International out of Dubai.
Mr. Rihan left Ernst & Young -- and leaked the audit -- because he says Ernst & Young turned a "blind eye" to the fact the audit would never be published.
Amjad Rihan leaked documents to Global Witness -- a non-governmental organization that investigates links between natural resource exploitation and conflict, poverty and human rights abuses. For instance, it helped expose how diamond mining financed war and fueled corruption. Global Witness published these new documents in a damning report called City of Gold.
Annie Dunnebacke is a deputy campaign director with Global Witness. She was in London.
The Current did request interviews with Ernst & Young, as well as the Dubai Regulator, DMCC. Neither made anyone available. However, Ernst & Young did send us a statement, which reads:
"In early 2013, EY Dubai was engaged to review the supply-chain compliance of Kaloti, a commodity dealer and refiner headquartered in Dubai. As a result of this process, EY Dubai identified some instances of non-compliance with the rules established by the relevant regulator (the Dubai Multi Commodities Centre or DMCC). "EY Dubai refutes entirely the suggestion that we did anything but highly professional work in relation to our compliance engagement with Kaloti. It was the work of EY Dubai that first brought to light that there was non-compliance with the applicable regulations. The instances of non-compliance we found were fully reported by EY Dubai to the client and separately to the regulator. In the course of its audit work, EY Dubai did not find any evidence that gold from conflict zones in Africa had been moved through Kaloti's refinery nor is EY Dubai aware of any such evidence of this. The client implemented a corrective action plan, as reflected in its Compliance Report - both the Compliance Report and EY Dubai's Assurance Report are public (see: http://www.kalotico.com/Sustainability/ ). We firmly believe that by identifying elements of non-compliance we played an important role for improvements in the client's supply chain controls.
We also did request an interview with Kaloti Jewellry International but got no response. However, it did publish a statement on its website stating that "these allegations are false and without any substantiation" and they "strongly deny any implication relating to regulatory non-compliance in the gold trade."
Shefa Siegel says that while there are ethical concerns surrounding the Dubai story - the story may be diverting attention from more significant ethical questions. He is a member of the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs, and has focused on international resource ethics for more than a decade. We reached Shefa Siegel in New York City.
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This segment was produced by The Current's Lara O'Brien, Sarah Grant and Leif Zapf-Gilje.