An investigation By The New Humanitarian describes a parallel taxation and financial system across M23/AFC-controlled eastern DRC, while tracing Congolese coltan and other trade across the border into Rwanda.
By XTRAfrica Analysis Desk September 15, 2026
The war economy operating in parts of eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo is not sustained by minerals alone. It is also built on checkpoints, commercial fees, transport levies, compulsory registrations and payments collected from people attempting to continue ordinary life under rebel control.
That is the central finding of a September 14 investigation by The New Humanitarian, reported by journalist Patricia Huon with contributions from a Congolese researcher working anonymously because of security concerns.
The investigation describes how the M23 and its political coalition, the Alliance Fleuve Congo, have embedded revenue collection into the economy of territories they control. According to the report, the money helps pay fighters, operate a parallel administration and reinforce control over captured Congolese territory.
Its findings also show the limits of that system. The rebellion is extracting revenue from communities already weakened by conflict, disrupted trade, business closures, cash shortages and declining purchasing power. The result is a structure capable of financing armed control while offering little economic recovery to the civilians living beneath it.
A tax system built around daily survival
According to The New Humanitarian’s interviews, M23/AFC revenue collection reaches across several layers of economic activity.
Trucks carrying goods reportedly pay at checkpoints. Motorcycle taxis moving between towns are charged. Shops, warehouses, informal traders and cross-border businesses face levies or registration demands. Fuel, agricultural products, timber, charcoal and manufactured goods moving through rebel-held territory can also become sources of revenue.
The investigation further reports that civilians pay for services and administrative documents in areas where the rebellion has imposed its authority. Some residents described demands for money, goods, labour or a portion of their harvest.
WAR IN DR CONGO
How Taxes and Congolese Minerals Finance the M23 Rebellion
Sep 15, 2026
Sep 15, 2026
13 min read
Published
Updated:
An investigation By The New Humanitarian describes a parallel taxation and financial system across M23/AFC-controlled eastern DRC, while tracing Congolese coltan and other trade across the border into Rwanda.
By XTRAfrica Analysis Desk September 15, 2026
The war economy operating in parts of eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo is not sustained by minerals alone. It is also built on checkpoints, commercial fees, transport levies, compulsory registrations and payments collected from people attempting to continue ordinary life under rebel control.
That is the central finding of a September 14 investigation by The New Humanitarian, reported by journalist Patricia Huon with contributions from a Congolese researcher working anonymously because of security concerns.
The investigation describes how the M23 and its political coalition, the Alliance Fleuve Congo, have embedded revenue collection into the economy of territories they control. According to the report, the money helps pay fighters, operate a parallel administration and reinforce control over captured Congolese territory.
Its findings also show the limits of that system. The rebellion is extracting revenue from communities already weakened by conflict, disrupted trade, business closures, cash shortages and declining purchasing power. The result is a structure capable of financing armed control while offering little economic recovery to the civilians living beneath it.
A tax system built around daily survival
According to The New Humanitarian’s interviews, M23/AFC revenue collection reaches across several layers of economic activity.
Trucks carrying goods reportedly pay at checkpoints. Motorcycle taxis moving between towns are charged. Shops, warehouses, informal traders and cross-border businesses face levies or registration demands. Fuel, agricultural products, timber, charcoal and manufactured goods moving through rebel-held territory can also become sources of revenue.
The investigation further reports that civilians pay for services and administrative documents in areas where the rebellion has imposed its authority. Some residents described demands for money, goods, labour or a portion of their harvest.
These individual payments may appear small when examined separately. Together, however, they can create a regular stream of income from transport, markets, trade and basic services. That predictability is important: a rebellion that can collect money every day is less dependent on occasional outside transfers or the sale of a single mineral shipment.
The burden ultimately falls on ordinary Congolese. A transport fee can raise the price of food before it reaches a market. A charge on a trader can be passed to customers. Repeated checkpoint payments can make local production less competitive and reduce the already-thin margins of small businesses.
This is the defining contradiction of the system described in the investigation. M23/AFC needs economic activity in order to tax it, but excessive extraction risks closing businesses and deepening the poverty of the population from which it collects revenue.
A parallel administration with financial ambitions
The New Humanitarian reports that M23/AFC has moved beyond collecting money at checkpoints. It has also attempted to construct institutions that resemble parts of a state administration.
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The investigation identifies a rebel-created body known as the Autorité de Régulation du Secteur Économique, Financier et des Assurances, or AREFA. The body reportedly requires financial-sector operators to register or obtain licences and is presented as a regulator in areas controlled by the movement.
The report also describes efforts to use branches of the Caisse Générale d’Épargne du Congo in Goma and Bukavu. Yet those branches remain disconnected from the national banking network and cannot access the SWIFT system required for many international transfers. AREFA cannot issue Congolese francs and lacks the reserves of a legitimate central bank.
These limitations matter. A movement can compel registration and collect fees, but it cannot easily recreate public confidence, monetary authority or international banking access. Residents interviewed by The New Humanitarian expressed fear that money deposited under the rebel-controlled arrangement might not be secure.
The parallel system therefore appears stronger as an instrument for extracting and supervising revenue than as a mechanism capable of restoring normal economic life.
Rubaya and the value of coltan taxation
The Rubaya mining area in North Kivu is central to understanding the mineral side of the war economy. Its coltan contains tantalum, a metal used in capacitors and electronic equipment worldwide.
M23 seized Rubaya in 2024. A United Nations Group of Experts report subsequently described rebel control over production, transport and trade around the mines. The experts estimated that M23 collected approximately $800,000 per month from levies on Rubaya’s coltan production and commerce—nearly $10 million a year if sustained at the same level.
Reuters reporting on the UN findings said at least 150 tonnes of coltan were fraudulently exported to Rwanda after M23 took the area. The UN experts described the resulting contamination of regional mineral supply chains as unprecedented in scale over the preceding decade.
The New Humanitarian’s investigation adds detail to the financial mechanism. People involved in the trade told the publication that coltan loads are weighed at checkpoints west of Goma and charged per kilogram. The report says payments connected to shipments are made through Rwanda, while access to mining and trading opportunities increasingly depends on acceptance by the rebel movement.
The important distinction is that M23 does not need to own every mine or personally export every shipment. Control of territory, roads, checkpoints and market access allows the group to collect revenue at multiple stages of the chain—from extraction to transport and cross-border sale.
From Congolese mines to Rwanda-linked export routes
The investigation describes minerals from M23/AFC-controlled territory moving across the border into Rwanda, where their Congolese origin may become obscured before they reach international markets.
This pattern is supported by sources beyond the September 14 report. The UN Group of Experts documented coltan from Rubaya entering Rwanda and mixing with Rwandan production. Rwanda has limited domestic coltan resources compared with the volumes it exports, a discrepancy that has intensified scrutiny of the country’s mineral trade.
A 2026 Global Witness investigation examined trade records and traced Rwanda-labelled coltan through exporters, processors and the international tantalum supply chain. Its analysis warned that minerals originating in M23-controlled Congolese territory could reach global manufacturers after passing through Rwanda-linked commercial networks.
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The findings do not establish that every mineral exported from Rwanda comes from the DRC, nor do they prove that every finished electronic device contains conflict-linked material. They do, however, expose a serious traceability problem: once Congolese minerals are mixed, relabelled or processed through several intermediaries, downstream companies may struggle—or fail—to determine their true origin.
The International Tin Supply Chain Initiative has suspended certification procedures for minerals from M23/AFC-controlled territory and investigated suspected false declarations of Rwandan origin, according to The New Humanitarian. Yet the continued flow described by journalists, UN experts and investigators suggests that paper-based controls can be defeated when armed actors control the physical routes.
Gold expands the economic picture
Coltan is the most visible example, but it is not the only mineral connected to the rebellion’s financing.
The New Humanitarian points to the capture of mining sites and transport corridors across North and South Kivu. In a separate case, Twangiza Mining alleged that approximately $70 million in gold had been removed from its South Kivu operation after the area fell under rebel control. That figure remains a company claim, but it illustrates the potential scale of revenue associated with access to a major industrial gold site.
International authorities have also acted on alleged Rwanda-linked gold networks. In June 2026, the U.S. Treasury sanctioned Gasabo Gold Refinery and associated executives and companies. Treasury said the network worked with M23 to move illegally sourced gold from eastern DRC into Rwanda and described mineral trafficking and unlawful taxation as direct sources of rebel financing.
The European Union had previously sanctioned Gasabo Gold Refinery, saying it was responsible for illegally importing gold from M23-controlled parts of the DRC. The EU also sanctioned M23 officials, including an individual it identified as the movement’s deputy head of finance and production.
These measures reinforce the wider conclusion that the war economy does not stop at the front line. It depends on commercial actors, transport routes, financial intermediaries and export channels capable of moving Congolese resources into the international marketplace.
Rwanda’s role and its denial
The New Humanitarian describes Rwanda as M23’s principal external backer and reports that Rwanda-linked businesses and traders have gained prominence in commerce connected to rebel-held areas.
Kigali denies directly supporting M23 and has framed its regional security posture around threats posed by armed groups connected to perpetrators of the 1994 genocide. Those denials remain part of Rwanda’s official position.
They stand against findings and decisions issued by several international bodies. The UN Group of Experts has repeatedly documented Rwandan military support for M23. In February 2025, the UN Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 2773, demanding that M23 end its offensives and that the Rwanda Defence Force cease support for the movement and withdraw from Congolese territory. The resolution also condemned illicit exploitation and trafficking of the DRC’s natural resources.
The United States and European Union have since used sanctions to target individuals, military structures and commercial entities they say enable the rebellion or benefit from conflict-linked mineral trade.
Why the tax system matters as much as the mines
The focus on coltan and gold is understandable. Mineral values can be estimated, export records can be examined and international buyers can be identified. But The New Humanitarian’s investigation shows why the taxation system deserves equal attention.
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Mineral income can fluctuate with production, prices and access to trade routes. Daily taxes on transport, markets, businesses and services provide a broader financial base. They also help transform territorial occupation into an administrative system that can monitor economic activity and compel compliance.
This means that disrupting conflict-mineral exports alone may not eliminate the rebellion’s income. Effective pressure must also address the collection points, transport corridors, commercial intermediaries and financial channels that turn control of Congolese territory into cash.
Congo’s wealth and the question of sovereignty
The deepest issue is not simply where coltan or gold is sold. It is who has the lawful authority to benefit from resources extracted inside the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Congolese minerals should finance Congolese development: schools, hospitals, roads, electricity, legitimate employment and services for mining communities. When an armed movement imposes taxes, controls routes and channels minerals through external markets, the country loses more than export revenue. Its sovereignty over territory, commerce and public administration is directly challenged.
The evidence assembled by The New Humanitarian, UN experts, U.S. and European sanctions authorities and Global Witness points to a system with several connected layers: compulsory local taxation, parallel economic administration, control over mining and transport, cross-border movement into Rwanda and eventual access to global supply chains.
That chain explains how occupation can become financially self-reinforcing. Territory creates access to taxpayers and minerals. Revenue supports fighters and administration. Those structures then help preserve control over the territory that produces the next cycle of revenue.
Breaking that cycle requires enforcement beyond eastern Congo. Mineral traders must verify origin rather than relying only on documents produced after goods cross a border. Refiners and manufacturers must examine unusual changes in national export volumes. Sanctions must reach the commercial and financial facilitators who convert illicit minerals into internationally tradable products.
Above all, international policy must begin from a clear principle: the natural wealth of the Democratic Republic of the Congo belongs to the Congolese people. Any system that finances armed control by diverting that wealth is not ordinary regional trade. It is a direct economic assault on Congolese sovereignty.
Source Credit and Further Reading
This article is based principally on Patricia Huon and a Congolese researcher’s investigation for The New Humanitarian: “How Rwanda-backed M23 rebels finance their war in DR Congo”, published September 14, 2026. XTRAfrica independently reviewed the supporting materials linked below and has clearly attributed allegations, estimates and investigative findings.
UN Group of Experts report on the Democratic Republic of the Congo — S/2024/969
U.S. Treasury sanctions targeting a Rwanda-linked conflict-minerals network
European Union sanctions related to M23 and illicit natural-resource trade
Global Witness investigation into the international journey of Rwanda-labelled coltan
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