Ornate, heavy necklaces gleam on stands above stacks of thick filigree bangles in the windows of Khartoum’s gold market. The gold is Sudanese, dug from the rich mines that span the country.

Shop owner Bashir Abdulay hands over a palm-sized lump of pure gold with two small bore holes as he explains how the prized metal goes from mine deposit, through middlemen, to Khartoum.

Abdulay describes the Jebel Amer gold mine in Darfur, one of several controlled by the Rapid Support Forces, the paramilitary group whose leader Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo is now a central figure in Sudan’s transition to democracy.

“There are many people working there, some work on their own, others for the RSF. Everyone has his place, and the RSF have theirs,” he says, the metal twinkling in the bright shop lights. “The RSF have a big place producing gold, and selling it on their own.”

The RSF seized control of the Jebel Amer gold mine in Darfur in 2017, immediately making Dagalo, known as Hemedti, one of Sudan’s richest men. The RSF and Hemedti also control at least three other goldmines in other parts of the country, such as South Kordofan, making them a key player in an industry that produces Sudan’s largest export.

After the 2019 uprising that overthrew former dictator Omar al-Bashir, Hemedti became part of the transitional military council and the sovereignty council designed to shepherd Sudan to democracy before elections are held in 2022.

Despite tentative government efforts to wrestle parts of the gold industry away from Sudan’s security services and back under state or private control, questions remain about whether Sudan can truly transition to democracy while the politically powerful RSF run a parallel economy all of their own.

To buy gold from the RSF, where do you go? Abdulay answers without hesitation: “Al Gunade have an office upstairs on the second floor,” he said, gesturing at the ceiling, unapologetically connecting the two organisations.

Al Gunade is a mining and trading corporation with deep ties to Hemedti and the RSF. Hemedti’s brother Abdul Rahim Dagalo and his sons are the three owners of Al Gunade, while reported RSF deputy Abdul Rahman al-Bakri is the general manager.

According to one of the documents obtained by the anti-corruption NGO Global Witness, Hemedti himself sits on the board of directors.

Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, head of Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces, at a meeting in Khartoum. Photograph: Ümit Bektaş/Reuters

After reviewing evidence of the activities of Al Gunade and the RSF, Global Witness concluded that “the RSF and a connected company have captured a swathe of the country’s gold industry and are likely using it to fund their operations”.

The organisation obtained bank data and corporate documents that, they say, show the RSF maintains a bank account in their name at the National Bank of Abu Dhabi (now part of the First Abu Dhabi Bank) in the United Arab Emirates, providing “evidence of the financial autonomy of the RSF”.

The UAE is by far the largest importer of Sudanese gold in the world. Global trade data from 2018 shows it imported 99.2% of the country’s gold exports. The Gulf nation has also subcontracted RSF militiamen to fight in Yemen and Libya, providing funds to the RSF.

The relationship between Sudan’s gold, wealthy foreign backers and the RSF militia is concerning observers. Global Witness believes the RSF is “an organisation whose military power and financial independence poses a threat to a peaceful democratic transition in Sudan”.

A former camel-trader, Hemedti gained his nickname from the words “my protector”. Before taking part in the coup that toppled him, he was the right-hand man of former dictator Bashir. Hemedti’s RSF grew out of the infamous Janjaweed militia active in Darfur, described as “men with no mercy” and accused of war crimes in a 2015 Human Rights Watch report. HRW found that during the RSF’s campaign in Darfur, the militia were responsible for “egregious abuses against civilians … torture, extrajudicial killings and mass rapes”, as well as “the forced displacement of entire communities; the destruction of wells, food stores and other infrastructure necessary for sustaining life in a harsh desert environment”.

Last June, the RSF were accused of attacking peaceful protesters to disperse a sit-in in Khartoum calling for a handover to civilian rule. Protestors and observers said the RSF brought the violent methods deployed in Blue Nile, South Kordofan and Darfur to the capital, shooting, stabbing, burning or crushing the skulls of at least 104 civilians, dumping bodies in the Nile, and raping at least 70 men and women.

Members of the Rapid Support Forces secure a site in Khartoum. Photograph: Ümit Bektaş/Reuters

The RSF have consistently denied their involvement. An investigation is ongoing.

“Hemedti himself, he understands the process of transition personally,” says Montaser Ibrahim, a former human rights defender who works with the RSF as an “unofficial consultant” on human rights. “This is one of the reasons that led me to deal with him.”

His new role has led to criticism from some in human rights activism, but Ibrahim sees the RSF as champions of minority rights, and Hemedti as a challenge against political elites.

“Hemedti is a revolutionary,” he says. He dismisses any notion of the RSF’s involvement in violence against protesters, branding accusations of war crimes against Hemedti and the Janjaweed as “propaganda”.

Both of Al Gunade’s two offices above Khartoum’s gold market are accessed via a dank staircase where bare wires jostle for space on the filthy walls.

Behind the tinted windows of Gunade’s offices, a kilogram gold bar sat on a lacquered wooden desk among office stationary, an ostentatious paperweight that may be the real thing. A man who repeatedly refused to give his name referred all questions about Al Gunade to the central bank, opening the office door to indicate that no further discussion would be accepted.

Sudanese authorities have begun attempts to overhaul the gold trade, dissolving mining companies involved with the former regime’s security services. Sudan now allows private traders to export gold provided 30% of deposits remain in the central bank.

An official from Sudan’s mining ministry, who cannot be named as they are not permitted to brief the media, said extra checks are made to screen out companies associated with the previous regime. The official said that the people behind a company mattered less than whether or not it followed the rules. “Now even if the head of the transitional military council came himself, he has to go with the regulations,” the official said.

Goldmine workers wait to get their raw gold weighed at a shop in the town of al-Fahir in North Darfur. Photograph: Mohamed Nureldin Abdallah/Reuters

Mohammed Tabidi, a Khartoum gold trader, says the new gold trading laws are a world away from those under the previous government that forced traders to buy gold from Sudan’s security services, or face arrest. “It’s a free market now,” he says.

He is hopeful about the possibilities of free trade amid a powerful black market and spiralling inflation that make daily life a struggle for many. Around the corner from the glistening mall where Tabidi works, men perch on bonnets in a car park, flicking fat wads of Sudanese pounds to signal their trade to drivers passing through. The official rate of 25 Sudanese pounds to the dollar is obsolete compared with the black market rate of 75, maybe even 80.

Tabidi says that while gold companies associated with other security services were rendered obsolete by the overhaul, Al Gunade remained.

“There is no company similar to Al Gunade [now],” he says. “There is nothing else like it.” The law is in flux, he says, and it is up to the authorities whether Al Gunade will continue.

“If export opens for traders, maybe Al Gunade won’t work,” he says. “But if they get a deal with the ministry of finance, they can.”

“Hemedti now is vice-president,” he said. “There are some things I can’t talk about.”

The RSF said in December that they would hand control of Jebel Amer to the government. Who will reap the profits remains very much in question, given the lack of transparency in Sudan’s gold industry and the difficulties in controlling a supply chain plagued by smuggling and remote sites controlled by militias. There are also few safeguards in place to prevent the RSF and Al Gunade operating illegally.

Richard Kent of Global Witness is critical of the RSF’s claim: “We welcome the development because it is potentially very beneficial to the Sudanese people and gold industry, but it’s still unclear exactly what this means,” he says. “Does this mean giving up the Al Gunade concession, reinstating some kind of civil or traditional administration – and if so how would that work, would it be independently appointed by the civilian government?”

Political transition offers the tools needed to transform Sudan’s most lucrative industry, cleaning up ministries and the supply chain. But there is a long road ahead before the Sudanese gold industry reaches the standards set by international observer bodies such as the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.

“There needs to be a level of transparency in the process,” Kent says. “The RSF and to a lesser extent other security agencies haven’t demonstrated [that] in other areas of their business until now. The reality is, there are still a lot of individuals associated with the intelligence agencies riddled throughout the industry and ministries. As long as general intelligence service and the RSF still have a hold over natural resources and over governing institutions, it’s very hard to see how the gold industry would be able to implement the internationally accepted standards it needs to improve and attract investment.”

Sipping tea outside a French cultural centre where he is taking classes, the RSF’s consultant Ibrahim, an avid reader of Paulo Coelho, says: “The RSF looks like a rebel force. But we need to use them to change the political situation in Sudan.”

Ibrahim’s role illustrates the RSF’s hints of reform and change. While Ibrahim is very concerned about being misunderstood, he declines to say whether he is paid, what the job actually entails or whether he believes there are receptive RSF ears for his talk of human rights.

“Hemedti believes in the revolution – I know you might be shocked by this,” he says.

Ibrahim maintained that the only way forward for Sudan’s transition is for cooperation between civil society and the security sector. He believes he is part of the solution, not the problem. “The security sector in Sudan can’t be cut from the political process,” he says. “This doesn’t contradict the idea of democracy.”

Formerly a “a political adviser” to the Sudan Liberation Army, Darfur-based militants, Ibrahim says he became a prisoners’ rights campaigner during Bashir’s regime and his latest role is the apex of a long journey in Sudanese politics. He has created an organisation within the RSF intended to provide training “for NGOs and civil society”. But not the RSF themselves? “No,” he answers dismissively.

Members of the Sudanese Professionals Association (SPA), an umbrella trade union association that spearheaded the mass protests leading to Bashir’s overthrow, are confident that Sudan’s path towards democracy isn’t threatened by the RSF or their economic interests, says their spokesman Dr Mohanad Hamid.

“Hemedti is dangerous not because he’s one of the richest men in Sudan, but because he has an army, a militia in pure terms that’s independent from the Sudanese army – this is the issue,” he says. “Of course the economy is one of the main concerns, [but] peace is also one of the main concerns.”

Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, centre, waves a baton as he arrives for a rally in the village of Abraq, about 60km north-west of Khartoum. Photograph: Yasuyoshi Chiba/AFP via Getty Images

Hamid is confident that Hemedti and the RSF’s wealth won’t present a problem, provided their businesses are eventually brought under state control. “It’s all of four months since the beginning of the transitional period – this process is years,” he says. “If we get all the money back into the ministry of finance at the end of the three years it will be great, but we’re still waiting.”

Other SPA representatives, like Dr Batoul Altayeb, are unfazed by the RSF.

After protesters staged a mass demonstration against the RSF and the military following the Khartoum massacre, the SPA believe people power can contain the force of the RSF.

“We did it before and we will do it again,” says Altayeb calmly. “[The sovereign council] includes the RSF because they know that peace is the key before the economy. Democracy is on the way – it’s a process, not just an outcome.”