Frequently asked questions

We provide transaction-by-transaction trade finance for vetted buyers and brokers purchasing gold and diamonds in West Africa. Once your deal passes our due diligence, we pay every upfront cost from our side — the purchase itself where agreed, government taxes and royalties, export licence fees, assay and testing, insurance and air freight. You pay nothing in advance. After the consignment reaches your destination and passes your final assay, you settle the pre-financed amount plus our agreed fee. Funds come from our institutional and private lending partners; our role is to qualify the buyer, verify the deal end-to-end, and supervise execution so the lender's capital and your transaction are both protected.

We do. That is the entire point of the model. The most common fraud pattern in West African gold deals is the seller demanding that the foreign buyer wire money for taxes, certificates, storage or shipping before the goods move. In every transaction we finance, those legitimate costs are paid directly by us to the actual issuing authorities and service providers — never routed through the seller. If a seller insists that money must pass through their hands, that deal fails our due diligence.

Our fees are success-based and agreed in writing before execution. Pricing depends on the transaction size, the origin country, the verification workload and the logistics involved, so it is quoted per deal rather than as a flat public rate. Two things are constant: the full cost structure is in the signed agreement before we commit a single dollar, and we are only paid when the deal concludes successfully. The one cost a client pays directly is product testing during due diligence, paid to the testing facility — not to us and not to the seller.

Serious, identifiable buyers and brokers with a legitimate pending or planned minerals transaction. In practice that means you can pass KYC (identity, company and background checks), you can show proof of funds to settle after delivery, and your deal stands up to scrutiny — a real seller, real product and lawful export route. Experience in the minerals trade helps but is not mandatory; first-time buyers with genuine funds and realistic expectations are welcome. Anonymous parties, buyers with no settlement capacity, and deals that depend on bypassing licensing or export law do not qualify.

We assess size case by case rather than publishing fixed limits. Very small one-off purchases are usually not economical to verify and escort properly, while very large transactions are structured in tranches so that trust and process are proven before scale. Tell us your intended quantity per shipment and your target monthly volume in the application form, and we will tell you honestly whether the economics work.

Yes. Because you pay after delivery, our lenders carry the entire transaction risk until settlement — so they need confidence that settlement will happen. Acceptable proof of funds is discussed during onboarding and handled confidentially under our KYC process. You will never be asked to transfer your funds to us or to anyone else as a condition of approval; we only need to verify that the funds exist and are accessible to you.

Our core markets are Sierra Leone (head office, Freetown), Guinea Conakry, Mali, Ghana, Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire, Liberia and Senegal. We can also handle transactions in Benin, Cape Verde, The Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria and Togo on a case-by-case basis. Each country page on this site explains the local supply, the lawful export route and how our financing applies there.

The initial phone interview is usually scheduled within a few business days of a complete application. KYC and deal due diligence typically take one to three weeks depending on the country, the counterparties and how quickly documents are provided — Sierra Leone and Liberia are fastest because of our physical presence; Mali and Burkina Faso take longest because verification there is deliberately heavier. We will give you a realistic timeline at the first call, and we will not compress due diligence to meet a seller's artificial deadline. Pressure to rush is itself a red flag we take seriously.

Always, and in person. Our teams verify the seller's identity, licences and history; witness proof of product; and require testing on calibrated equipment at a recognised facility before any financing is committed. We also verify export documents directly with the issuing government offices rather than accepting copies. Roughly speaking, more deals fail our due diligence than pass it — and every failed deal is a buyer who didn't lose money.

We tell you plainly, we show you why, and the transaction stops before you have spent anything beyond the testing cost. Many clients first come to us with a deal already in progress and money already requested by a 'seller'; our verification frequently saves them from a loss far larger than any fee we would ever charge. If the deal is salvageable through a different, legitimate seller, we will say so.

Yes. Once financing is approved, our team manages or directly supervises valuation, tax and royalty payment, export licensing, packing, insurance and air freight to your destination, and we remain part of the delivery process until the consignment is in your hands. You receive the full documentation trail. This supervision is not an optional extra — it is how we protect our lenders' capital, and it is why our deals conclude cleanly.

Both. Brokers with a genuine mandate from a funded end buyer are a normal part of this trade and we work with them regularly. Be transparent about your role in the application: a broker who presents themselves as the buyer will fail KYC when the funds trail doesn't match the story. Where a broker introduces a qualified buyer, the broker's position and compensation are written into the agreement so everyone's interest is protected.

Not always, but you should treat it that way until proven otherwise. There are legitimate costs in a lawful export — taxes, royalties, licences, assay, freight — and small local sellers genuinely cannot float them. The fraud is in who receives the money: in a legitimate deal those costs are paid to government offices and service providers against official receipts; in a scam they are paid to the 'seller' or their 'agent' and the demands never stop. Our model resolves the dilemma completely: the legitimate costs get paid, by us, to the right parties — and you carry none of the risk.

Never pay money to a seller or their agent before independent verification. Be suspicious of prices meaningfully below the world spot price, of urgency, of 'inheritance' or 'refugee' gold stories, and of any process that avoids the official export channel. Insist on witnessed testing at a recognised facility, verify every document with the issuing authority, and use a financing or escrow structure so your funds are never exposed first. We've published a full guide on this site — read it before you send anyone a cent, whether you work with us or not.

Our head office is at No 78, Hamilton Avenue, Freetown, Sierra Leone, and we maintain operating partners across our core markets. In-person meetings in Freetown are welcome by appointment, and during a financed transaction your team or representative can attend testing and export procedures alongside ours. We encourage it — transparency is cheap for honest parties and expensive for dishonest ones.