BREAKING: Burkina Faso FINALLY Takes Back Its GOLD From Canada!

On June 12, 2025, Burkina Faso completed something most countries only talk about. The government took full control of five gold mining operations, without the involvement of foreign investors. These were not empty fields waiting to be explored. These were active, producing mines. Some of them had been run by Canadian firms for over a decade. Now, every ounce of gold pulled from the ground is managed by a new state-owned company, SOPAMIB. And just like that, Canada was out.
The decision was not sudden. For months, there were signs that the Burkinabé government was no longer willing to let foreign firms dominate its most valuable resources. In August 2024, a mining code revision was passed. Then came the creation of a national mining company. But few expected the government to move this fast or to go this far.
Until recently, Canada had been one of the largest players in West African mining. Its influence was so deep that some of the region’s largest mining projects had boards and executives based in Toronto. But the balance has now changed. Burkina Faso has rejected the old rules of extraction and replaced them with state-led strategies aimed at controlling value, production, and profit.
Burkina Faso is Africa's fourth largest gold producer, producing more than 57 tons of gold in 2023. At current gold prices, that is roughly $3.8 billion worth of precious metal coming out of the ground every single year. However, most of that wealth were always boarding flights to Toronto, Montreal, and other international financial centers while Burkina Faso remained one of the world's poorest countries.
Immediately Ibrahim Traoré got into power, he started asking the uncomfortable questions. "How exactly does a country sitting on billions of dollars worth of gold struggle to fund basic infrastructure? Why are mining executives in Canada getting richer from our gold than the people who actually live above it?" The answers he found led to the most dramatic resource takeover in modern African history.
It did not happen through protests. There were no viral headlines. No breaking news ticker on international television. Yet, within a year, Canadian mining firms lost their foothold in one of West Africa’s richest gold zones. The process began with signals, low-key but unmistakable.