(Ecofin Agency) - 77 kg of gold were seized from three people, French, Canadian and Belgian respectively, at the Ouagadougou International Airport, Burkina Faso, Xinhua reported on Saturday.

This gold mainly comes from modern and artisanal mining which generate nearly €2.3 million (about FCFA1.5 billion) according to sources from Ministry of mining.

Interrogation of the arrested revealed that they came to Burkina Faso to “fraud” and export 77 kg of the ore, Secretary General of Ministry of Mining, Emmanuel Nonyarma told the press. 

Burkina Faso currently depends on the booming gold industry where nearly 1.2 million people have been counted on the gold-mining sites and where more than a hundred died since 2010 to landslides.

In 2013, it was reported that Gold mining represented 12% of Burkina’s GDP adding about 192 billion FCFA (€295 million) to state’s budget.