Rwandan company Boss Mining Solution bought minerals smuggled from rebel-held areas of neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), helping fund an insurgency in the African country, according to a confidential report by a group of UN experts that was reviewed by Reuters.
The UN report marks the first time the world body has named a company that is allegedly complicit in trafficking minerals looted from the DRC since M23 insurgents seized a key mining area there last year. Boss Mining was named in the UN report, which documents how recent territorial gains in the DRC by M23 have further destabilised a region beset by decades of conflict.
The heavily armed rebels, whose stated aim is to overthrow the government in Kinshasa and ensure the safety of the DRC's Tutsi minority, have been accused by the UN of plundering the DRC’s natural resources and committing atrocities against civilians, backed by the government of neighbouring Rwanda.
Illegal mining in M23-controlled areas and the smuggling of the minerals to Rwanda have “reached unprecedented levels”, the report said.
The report was submitted to the UN Security Council sanctions committee for the DRC in early May and is due to be published soon, diplomats told Reuters. M23 did not respond to requests for comment. Boss Mining’s operations are run by Eddy Habimana, a Rwandan businessman, corporate records reviewed by Reuters show. UN investigators identified Habimana a decade ago as a minerals smuggler connected to rebels waging war in eastern DRC.
Habimana declined to comment on the allegations in the unpublished UN Report. Two Russia-born mining executives are also owners in Boss Mining, according to the Rwandan corporate records.
A Reuters analysis of customs records from 2024 found Boss Mining is one of a number of Rwandan companies that export significant volumes of coltan despite the fact that Rwanda produces little of the metallic ore
Yolande Makolo, Rwanda government spokesperson, told Reuters on Wednesday the UN report "misrepresents Rwanda's longstanding security concerns" about Hutu rebel groups that have attacked ethnic Tutsis in the Rwanda and DRC, a threat that "necessitates the defence posture in our border areas".
A DRC government spokesperson did not immediately respond to questions from Reuters, but DRC officials have repeatedly accused Rwanda of fomenting the conflict to plunder the DRC's mineral wealth.
Sales from the mineral trade have been critical to funding M23’s rebellion. The insurgents this year swept across large swathes of eastern DRC that are home to the country’s largest coltan mine and mines producing gold, copper, tin and gemstones.
A Reuters analysis of customs records from 2024 found Boss Mining is one of a number of Rwandan companies that export significant volumes of coltan despite the fact that Rwanda produces little of the metallic ore.
Rubaya, the DRC mining area controlled by M23, produces 15% of the world’s coltan. The ore is processed into a heat-resistant metal called tantalum that is in high demand from makers of mobile phones, computers and other applications in the electronics, aerospace and medical industries.
Earlier this year, M23 insurgents seized the DRC border cities of Bukavu and Goma, giving them control of two key crossings into Rwanda. It is through the cities that smuggled DRC minerals are trucked to Rwanda, often at night “to avoid detection”, according to the forthcoming UN report. The report said 195 tons came across in the last week of March alone.
Some of the smuggled minerals were purchased by Boss Mining, the report said.
In previous text messages to Reuters in June responding to questions about Boss Mining’s operations, Habimana said his company has “never been involved in purchasing coltan from Rubaya”.
“All materials we buy are in compliance" with international guidelines meant to ensure mining isn't used to fund armed groups or contribute to human rights abuses, he said.
M23’s lightning advance in eastern DRC has reignited a decades-old conflict that has its origins in Rwanda’s 1994 genocide and has displaced millions of people.
The rebels have vowed to overthrow the DRC government. Rwanda’s government has long denied it traffics in coltan looted from its neighbour or that it backs M23. However, Rwanda’s ruling party, mainly headed by Tutsis, shares the same concerns as the Tutsi-dominated M23 insurgents over the alleged threat posed by rival Hutu groups operating in eastern DRC.
As of April, Rwanda had at least 1,000 troops in the DRC, according to the confidential UN report.
On Friday Rwanda and the DRC signed a US-brokered peace agreement that aims to arrange for the withdrawal of Rwandan troops from DRC’s territory. The accord does not include M23.
The rebel group is part of a separate, parallel mediation led by Qatar that seeks to end hostilities. The success of those talks is key to any lasting peace.
A Reuters analysis of customs records found Boss Mining in 2024 exported at least 150 metric tons of coltan worth $6.6m (R115m). The figure accounted for 6.5% of total Rwandan exports of coltan in 2024, making Boss Mining the country’s sixth-largest exporter of the ore last year.
Boss Mining does not mine its own coltan but purchases it from another Rwandan company, Speck Minerals, and from other sellers, according to a Boss Mining employee who asked not to be identified, saying he was not authorised to speak to the media.
Boss Mining has a mining concession in Rwanda's Burera district where it mines wolframite, according to the employee and an online database from the Rwanda Mining Board. The area does not have major coltan mining sites, according to maps of mineral deposits in Rwanda and mining industry press.
Habimana is also the listed company representative of Speck Minerals, according to the Rwanda Mining Association and Rwandan mining industry press reports.
The phone number provided is the same number Habimana uses for Boss Mining, according to a 2024 Rwanda Mining Association publication. The Boss Mining employee told Reuters Speck operates two mines in the Gakenke and Muhanga districts of Rwanda that produce a combined 18 tons of coltan monthly.
A 2018 audit of the Muhanga mine conducted by a Thai smelter lists the mine site name as Speck Minerals and Habimana as the site owner. The audit listed the monthly production at the time as 2.3 tons of coltan.
Responding last month to Reuters’ questions about Boss Mining, Habimana in text messages described the two mining concessions in Muhanga and Gakenke as part of Boss Mining's operations. Reuters was unable to verify production at either mine.
Habimana did not answer questions about Speck or the employee’s assertions about production.
UN investigators, non-governmental organisations and mining industry sources have accused M23 rebels and their Rwandan backers of profiting from the illicit trade of minerals smuggled from the DRC for more than a decade.
The scale of the trade reached new levels after M23 captured Rubaya and established a parallel administration controlling mining activities, trade, transport and the taxation of minerals produced there, according to a UN report published in December 2024.
Reuters reporters visited Rubaya in March this year and were told by M23 officials that the rebels had imposed a tax on mineral traders of 15% on the value of coltan they purchase from informal miners who work the area.
The 2024 UN report said the rebels, by seizing Rubaya, had ensured they could maintain exclusive control over the critical supply chain of minerals, while making Rwanda “the sole transit market for these minerals”.
The smuggled DRC coltan is mixed with Rwandan production before export, making it virtually impossible to trace its origin, then sold to smelters supplying global technology manufacturers, UN experts said.
The resulting mingling of DRC and Rwandan coltan production was “the most important contamination of supply chains” to date, the UN said.
M23 was taking in $800,000 (R14m) monthly from taxes collected from coltan mining in eastern DRC, according to the 2024 report. Official statistics on Rwanda’s coltan production are unreliable, mining experts said. The country’s central bank suspended publication of export figures in May 2024, shortly after M23 seized Rubaya.
A Reuters analysis of customs records showed Rwanda exported at least 2,300 tons of coltan ore last year.
A group of 11 mining experts and geologists who work in the region told Reuters Rwanda exports far more coltan than the country produces. Many of them have visited mines in the two countries and said the scale of mine sites and number of miners in Rwanda are dwarfed by those in the DRC.
“It’s totally implausible that Rwanda can generate that level of output," UK-based mineral consultant Bill Millman said of Rwanda’s 2024 coltan exports.
Rwanda’s government did not comment on its coltan production.
The DRC severed diplomatic relations with Rwanda in January after M23 seized Goma.
The DRC’s military has struggled to contain repeated Rwanda-backed rebellions. Even in peacetime Kigali has long benefited from the corruption and weak regulation in the minerals trade that fuels smuggling from the DRC.
Rwandan company records reviewed by Reuters show t Boss Mining was set up in 2013 and is one-third owned by Habimana, the managing director who denied purchasing DRC coltan.
The records show Boss Mining has two other owners: Yuriy Tolmatchev and Alexander Konovalchik. The men have dual British and Russian citizenship and have been in the mining industry for decades, according to UK and Russian corporate records and Russian mining industry press reports. They live and work in the UK.
The two men also own other companies that buy up the coltan supplied by Boss Mining, according to the corporate records reviewed by Reuters. They are also directors of a Cyprus company, Metarex, Cyprus corporate records show.
Metarex is the 100% owner of Novacore FZE, a company based in the United Arab Emirates, according to UAE corporate records provided by the corporate intelligence firm Diligencia. Novacore is managed by Tolmatchev and buys all of Boss Mining’s coltan, according to the corporate records and a Reuters analysis of customs records.
Tolmatchev did not comment on Novacore’s purchases. He said Boss Mining is the smallest coltan exporter in Rwanda, but declined to provide more information.
“I have no idea how local traders do business in North Kivu,” he said, referring to the DRC province that is home to the Rubaya coltan mine.
Asked about the UN report that Boss Mining buys minerals smuggled from the DRC, Tomaltchev said the company did not purchase material that originated in the DRC.
Konovalchik had no comment on the UN report. He told Reuters all of Boss Mining’s minerals are purchased “from Rwandan sources”. He referred follow-up questions to Habimana.
He said: “I’m not controlling day-by-day operations.”
Reuters
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