How the World Drains Congo's Mines

Congo mines about three-quarters of the world's cobalt, the metal inside phone and electric-car batteries. Yet most Congolese live on less than three dollars a day, and fewer than one in four has electricity. This video follows the cobalt out of Kolwezi, and then follows the money back, to show how the value of Congo's minerals leaks away before it reaches the people living above them. Chapters 0:00 The Gate Closes 1:23 The Value Leaves Raw 2:31 The State's Cut 3:25 The China Deal 4:58 The Money Nobody Can Trace 6:25 Why It Was Built This Way 7:46 Minerals That Pay for Guns 9:01 Why Not Refine at Home? 10:13 Congo Pulls the Lever 11:32 Back at the Mine Every number on screen is credited to its source. Official figures, estimates and contested claims are labelled as such. Allegations about named companies and people are stated as the source states them: Glencore International AG's 2022 guilty plea in the United States; the US Treasury's 2017 and 2018 statements on Dan Gertler, who denies wrongdoing; UN Group of Experts findings on eastern Congo, which Rwanda disputes. Archive and representative images are labelled on screen. Key sources USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026 and Minerals Yearbook (Congo); World Bank (poverty, electricity access, Inga); EITI, "From Resources to Revenues"; IMF Country Report 24/226 (Sicomines); Carter Center, "A State Affair" (2017); US Department of Justice, Glencore plea release (2022); US Treasury releases on Dan Gertler (2017, 2018); IEA Global Critical Minerals Outlook 2025 and policy tracker (ARECOMS cobalt export decisions); S&P Global Platts cobalt hydroxide assessments; UN Group of Experts on the DR Congo reports (S/2024/969, S/2025/446, S/2026/466); Afrewatch (Sicomines infrastructure); IMF (Gécamines output history). Credits Photos: "Kamoto Mine" by Martin Tuchscherer (2006), CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons. "Kopermijn Kolwezi (1973)" by Rob Mieremet / Anefo, Nationaal Archief, CC BY 4.0, Wikimedia Commons. Footage (Pexels License): Musko io; Alexander Lutkov; Mặt Trời Xứ Lạng; Marian Croitoru; Tom Fisk; Julien Goettelmann; Duy Nguyen; Sathish Kumar; Usman AbdulrasheedGambo; Sandeep Solanki. Representative footage is labelled on screen. Satellite and maps: Contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data 2016, 2025 (Sentinel-2). Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL). Natural Earth (public domain). Music: "Dark Alley Deals" by Aaron Kenny (YouTube Audio Library). Sound effects: "WWS Projectionist turns the machine by hand – Cinema projector" by Work With Sounds / La Fonderie, CC BY 4.0; "Canon T50 shutter noise" by Francois C, CC BY-SA 3.0; SLR shutter sound by Smial, CC0 (all Wikimedia Commons). Other sound effects made for this film. Licences: CC BY 4.0, CC BY-SA 3.0 and CC0 as named; full licence texts are on creativecommons.org. Underlight: bringing overlooked stories into view. Next episode: we use AI to go through the Epstein files and map where he actually went. Subscribe so you don't miss it. #Congo #Cobalt #Geopolitics