About 3 metric tons of gold seized by authorities in Mali from Canadian miner Barrick Gold’s Loulo-Gounkoto mining complex is now being held at Malian state-owned Banque Malienne de Solidarite (BMS), two sources told Reuters.
Reuters reported on Monday that, in an escalation of their long-running dispute with the company, Malian officials had seized gold worth $245 million to be transported to BMS in the capital Bamako.
Barrick on Tuesday confirmed it had suspended operations in the West African country and that the government had moved gold stock from the miner’s Loulo-Gounkoto site to an unnamed bank.
Eyewitnesses at the mining complex described gold being flown away in two separate air force helicopter loads on Saturday, one of the sources said.
In a Jan. 2 order seen by Reuters, judge Boubacar Moussa Diarra ordered the seizure of 3.08 kg of gold to be stored in the Banque de Developpement du Mali (BDM) in Bamako.
The two sources told Reuters that BDM, however, said it could not securely hold that amount of gold and therefore the gold was placed with BMS.
(Reporting by Giulia Paravicini and Portia Crowe; editing by David Goodman and Philippa Fletcher)
