How one Egyptian military-owned company came to dominate Sudan's conflict trade

Last month, the European Union (EU) and the United Kingdom published a new list of sanctioned entities involved in the financing of rival factions in Sudan's civil war.

On 19 July, the UK sanctioned a total of 11 entities for their role in what it called the "illicit gold networks fuelling Sudan’s war". A few days earlier, the EU had announced a complete ban on the trade of gold originating in Sudan.

Missing from the sanctions were measures aimed at Egyptian entities, despite their central role in supplying goods to the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and importing gold from areas the latter control.

The New Arab has obtained leaked documents from the Egyptian Sudanese Company (ESC), a joint venture of the Egyptian and Sudanese governments, which has become one of the main conduits of trade between Sudan and its neighbour to the north, including in gold.

The ESC claims it controls one quarter of the $1 billion trade between Sudan and Egypt. In 2025, half of Sudan’s exports to Egypt reportedly passed through ESC, including between two and three tons of Sudanese gold.

The internal documents, which include invoices and contracts from August 2021 to March 2024, show how the ESC drew on its connections within the Egyptian state to achieve a dominant position within Sudan’s wartime economy.

They also show how ESC supplied a number of SAF-linked entities - including some under existing US, EU and UK sanctions - while generating profits for the state-linked company.

In 2025, Egypt imported 4.9 tons of Sudanese gold - worth $517 million - representing a 20-fold increase compared to the previous year. In the first three months of 2026 alone, the total export of gold from Sudan to Egypt reached $225 million, most of which is then re-exported to the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

The Egyptian-Sudanese Company officially launched in Cairo in April 2021, with a startup capital of about 500 million Egyptian Pounds ($50 million at the time).

It is owned jointly by affiliates of the Egyptian Ministry of Supply and the Ministry of Defence, and by a subsidiary of Sudan’s Defence Industries System (DIS), an SAF-owned conglomerate and its primary weapons producer.

At its launch, the ESC’s goal was to increase economic cooperation and trade between Egypt and Sudan, mainly through the cultivation of agricultural products and livestock. But by the conclusion of its first full year, in 2022, only about 4% of this trade passed through the company.

Profiting from civil war

With the eruption of the Sudanese civil war in April 2023, ESC’s opportunities to expand in Sudan multiplied.

Growing demand for food in the country - where some 20 million people experienced high levels of food insecurity - allowed the ESC to grow its exports of commodities.

According to a presentation to its Board of Directors, in the first six months of 2023, the Egyptian Sudanese Company supplied the SAF and its partners with some 25,000 tons of sugar and 7,000 tons of flour.

The company claimed a profit of about 70 million EGP ($2.3 million) in the same period.

Suliman Baldo, executive director at the US-based think-tank Sudan Transparency and Policy Tracker, told The New Arab that the Egyptian Sudanese Company’s unique financing through commodities helped sanctioned Sudanese army businesses bypass international restrictions.

“All of the trade is done in local currency. Sudanese Army companies operate like a big grocery store, where supplies from the Egyptian Sudanese Company are re-packaged in Sudan and sold to consumers, which generates local currency,” Baldo explained.

“These revenues are then used to buy products to export to Egypt. It’s a form of swap, or barter trade. And this is the main avenue for evading sanctions since no US dollars or euros are exchanged.”

The ESC also had to dodge Egyptian trade restrictions as well. Sugar, for example, was exported despite a nationwide ban from March 2023. The export continued until at least March 2024, according to the leaked documents. The ESC was able to negotiate special permits to export the sugar through the Ministry of Supply, citing the “crisis” in Sudan as justification.

By the end of the year, the ESC reported to its shareholders it had tripled its share of trade with Sudan compared to the previous year and had achieved a 46% return on its investments.

Asked for comment during a video call, an executive for the ESC initially denied the company's involvement with sanctioned entities from Sudan. They did not provide a comment when confronted with the evidence obtained by The New Arab.

Political influence

The internal documents also show how the ESC called on different parts of the Egyptian government to help it grow its financial position in Sudan.

In April 2023, a few weeks before the start of the civil war in Sudan, the Egyptian military reportedly offered the ESC the chance to charter a Lockheed C-130 plane to transport some 1,500 tons of meat from Sudan to circumvent logistical challenges at the Sudanese-Egyptian border. The plan was ultimately dropped due to its high cost.

Then, a few months after the start of the conflict, and after Sudanese nationals were banned from entering Egypt without a visa in June 2023, the Egyptian-Sudanese Company wrote to the Ministry of Supply to allow the visit of Sudanese General Mirghani Idris Suleiman, then-General Director of the Defence Industries System, to the country.

Meanwhile, trade between the ESC and subsidiaries of the Defence Industries System continued even after the Sudanese conglomerate was put on a sanctions list by the US and UK governments in summer 2023.

By January 2024, the ESC concluded an agreement for the import of Sudanese gold and its distribution within Egypt.

A sanctions regime dead on arrival?

Baldo, whose organisation published a report last month on the growing export of Sudan’s gold to Egypt, told The New Arab that the ESC’s role is most likely limited to directing this gold into the Egyptian economy and exporting any surpluses to the UAE.

“Egypt is still making a profit because they buy the gold at a lower price while helping Sudanese entities evade the sanctions,” he added.

However, it is doubtful whether the recently announced measures by the EU and UK could really succeed in limiting the flow of conflict gold.

“To stop the conflict in Sudan, one priority is to follow the gold along the supply chain,” said Marc Ummel, a researcher at the Swiss charity SWISSAID.

“As long as companies dealing with Sudanese gold along the whole supply chain are not taken into account, these sanctions will have a limited impact,” he told The New Arab.

Being the world’s largest importer and exporter of gold, Switzerland might inadvertently distribute Sudanese conflict gold, which is prohibited under the EU sanctions regime.

“Although the EU sanctions regime specifies in Article 2a that the indirect importation of Sudanese gold is prohibited, there is currently no mechanism in place to control or prevent it,” explained Ummel.

”This is why we need, in combination with the extension of sanctions, more due diligence, transparency and traceability requirements for the import of gold in legislation like the EU, the UK and Switzerland,” the Swiss researcher concluded.

Anas Ambri is a freelance investigative journalist. Follow him on Bluesky: @anasambri.bsky.social

Edited by Charlie Hoyle