How Russia Moves Sanctioned Gold Through Hong Kong
How Russia Moves Sanctioned Gold Through Hong Kong
Hong Kong imported 112.7 tonnes of Russian-origin non-monetary gold from January to July 2026 and this seven-month total already exceeds the 92.1 tonnes recorded across all of 2025. In 2021 Hong Kong imported only 3.3 tonnes of Russian bullion. Before the war in Ukraine London buyers took roughly two-thirds of Russian mine output. In March 2022 the London Bullion Market Association removed six Russian refiners from its Good Delivery list and in June 2022 the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and Japan banned imports of Russian gold. Those bans closed the Western wholesale market to Moscow and raised the question of where Russian producers would sell their metal and hold it inside the international financial system.
The trade moved to Hong Kong. Western governments banned Russian gold, but Beijing and Hong Kong did not join the G7 restrictions. Hong Kong operates as a free port with no customs tariff on bullion and no local ban on Russian-origin bars. At the same time the People’s Bank of China limits the volume of gold that commercial banks and refiners can bring directly into mainland China through import quotas. Mainland buyers face strict import limits at home, and they buy Russian bullion in Hong Kong and store the bars in commercial vaults there or move the metal through local refiners and dealers as mainland quotas allow. Russian gold now accounts for nearly 15 percent of Hong Kong’s non-monetary gold imports, up from 0.6 percent in 2021, and total imports of Russian bullion into the territory since early 2022 have reached roughly 276 billion Hong Kong dollars, or about 35 billion US dollars.
This trade works because gold serves three distinct functions at once. Gold is a physical metal that requires refining, transport and guarded vaults, a financial asset priced every second in international markets and a reserve asset held by central banks. A buyer and a seller can transfer ownership on a dealer’s ledger and leave the physical bars inside the same Hong Kong vault. Hong Kong customs records show only the entry of non-monetary gold, which covers commercial bars and unrefined metal for refiners and jewellers. Those customs records do not name the final buyer and they do not prove that the People’s Bank of China bought those specific bars. The trade still creates a serious legal risk for Western banks, insurers and transport companies in Hong Kong, and those firms face secondary sanctions from Washington if Russian metal mixes with standard bullion inside local clearing systems.
Western sanctions did not stop Russia from selling its gold, and they only moved the trade from London vaults to Hong Kong ledgers.