Hong Kong imported nearly 100 metric tons of Russian gold in January–July, roughly three times more than in the same period a year earlier, according to a Financial Times analysis. Since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022, Hong Kong-registered companies have bought about $35 billion worth of Russian gold.
Shipments began to rise after the United States and Britain banned imports of new Russian gold in 2022. China and Hong Kong did not join those sanctions, the newspaper noted.
Debajit Saha, an analyst at London Stock Exchange Group, said that after the London market closed to Russian metal, producers increasingly redirected supplies to Asian countries. Most gold arriving in Hong Kong is later sent to mainland China, where import quotas apply; Hong Kong has no such restrictions, so Chinese buyers often store the metal there.
Hong Kong is simultaneously developing infrastructure for gold trading and storage, and its position is further strengthened by logistics disruptions in Dubai amid the Middle East conflict, the FT assessed.
The rise in Russian supplies complicates due-diligence checks for Western banks and gold refineries, specialists interviewed by the FT warned. Tan Albayrak, a sanctions expert at the law firm Reed Smith, explained that the presence of a sanctioned producer in the supply chain creates a risk of indirect dealings with it, even if a bank does not buy the metal directly. Hong Kong's Financial Services and the Treasury Bureau, asked about the risk of Russian gold being mixed with metal from other countries, said that participants in the new settlement system are obliged to comply with anti-money-laundering and counter-terrorist-financing requirements.
In June 2024, the U.S. Treasury imposed sanctions on several Hong Kong companies that it said were involved in a scheme with gold from the sanctioned Russian producer Polyus. The U.S. agency alleged that sales proceeds were converted into conventional currencies and cryptocurrencies through shell companies in Hong Kong and the UAE, then returned to the Russian financial system. Among the scheme's participants, the agency named Holden International Trading, Taube Precious HK, and VPower Finance Security Hong Kong.