The 3TG, a group of raw materials that include tantalum, tin, tungsten and gold, makes a huge difference for the auto industry of our times as it strives to transition to electric vehicles (EV).
These materials are critically important for building suspension systems, wiring, lighting and electronic displays. Durable, resistant to corrosion and great for conducting electricity, 3TG minerals are currently high in demand from carmakers in Europe and elsewhere.
The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) boasts some of the biggest deposits of such minerals in the world, and exploiting them could be a source of prosperity for the country in Central Africa.
However, current profits from mining 3TG help fuel a violent conflict in the country, so that they are often also called “conflict minerals.”
DR Congo: What role do minerals play in the conflict?
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According to new investigative research by DW and Dutch magazine De Groene Amsterdammer, 3TG conflict minerals are very likely to have ended up in the electric vehicles of Europe’s biggest carmaker, Volkswagen (VW).
Based on VW’s own Responsible Raw Materials Report, DW has found that at least six entities that have been linked by the DRC and the European Union to conflict minerals are part of the German company’s supply chain. Another supplier, a gold refinery in Sudan, was until recently controlled by an armed group that the United States has accused of genocide.
In an emailed statement, a VW spokesperson wouldn’t “confirm or rule out with absolute certainty” that the smelters are supplying the carmaker.
Their appearance in VW’s raw materials reporting system “does not indicate that they are necessarily part of our supply chain,” the statement added.
The smelters identified by DW include tin smelters Malaysia Smelting Corporation, Thailand’s Thaisarco and Chinese Yunnan Tin Company, and for tantalum the Ningxia Orient Tantalum Industry, also from China. For gold, DW identified the Gasabo Gold Refinery in Rwanda and the African Gold Refinery in Uganda.
“Volkswagen Group does not have a direct business relationship with any of the listed companies or mines,” the statement said, and that the “complexity of global supply chains” was responsible.
3TG elements are crucial for various components in an electric carImage: Sina Schuldt/dpa/picture alliance
Volkswagen is the only major European car manufacturer that provides insight into where it sources its 3TG metals. This transparency has made this analysis possible, while other car manufacturers such as Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Renault and Stellantis say nothing publicly about where 3TG metals in their cars come from.
Sasha Lezhnev, a senior policy advisor at the investigative news platform The Sentry in Washington, D.C., thinks the car industry is “not paying enough attention to what is happening in Congo.”
“Companies such as Volkswagen need to do their best and pay attention to the war,” he told DW.
Carmakers’ dirty supply chains
Volkswagen, Europe’s largest car manufacturer, says that by 2030, at least 70% of the cars it sells in Europe must be electric. This means more electronics, more wiring, more 3TG metals.
On the other end of the supply chain is DRC. But it’s been shaken by violence, especially in the resources-rich east of the country, bordering Rwanda.
Minerals are smuggled from eastern DRC into Rwanda, where they are mixed with local production and exported worldwide, United Nations experts say. According to them, the Rwanda-backed rebel group M23 earns around $800,000 a month from this trade.
Congolese rebel force M23 controls the Rubaya mine in eastern DRC from where conflict minerals are sold all over the worldImage: Camille Laffont/AFP
To expose this system, DRC filed criminal complaints against Apple, an end user of 3TG minerals, in a landmark case in 2024. DRC accused the smartphone maker of complicity in the conflict minerals trade. Apple denied the accusations.
DW found that four tin and tantalum smelters named in DRC’s criminal complaint in Belgium for their links to smuggled minerals also appear on VW’s 3TG suppliers list. These include Malaysia Smelting Corporation, Thaisarco, Yunnan Tin Company and Ningxia Orient Tantalum Industry.
VW’s supply chain also includes gold from Gasabo Gold Refinery in Rwanda and African Gold Refinery in Uganda, which have processed gold smuggled from DRC, according to the EU. The former refinery was sanctioned by the EU in early 2025.
In 2023 and 2024, Volkswagen’s supply chain included gold from the Sudan Gold Refinery in Khartoum, which at the time was controlled by the Sudanese paramilitary group Rapid Support Forces (RSF). The group has been accused of genocide by the US.
“This means that Volkswagen’s supply chain is contaminated with conflict gold and there is a huge risk that it’s indirectly funding those conflicts,” says Marc Hummel, a raw materials researcher at the Swiss nonprofit organization Swissaid.
“It’s very surprising and disappointing that [VW] has some of the worst, most notorious smelters in the world in its supply chain,” he told DW.
A patchy certification system
Companies in need of 3TG resort to business initiatives to check their sourcing policy through the Responsible Minerals Initiative (RMI). Smelters have their procedures checked by independent audit agencies. If everything is in order, they receive a positive assessment by the RMI.
Volkswagen is also a member of RMI. In its code of conduct VW says that its suppliers may only use raw materials from smelters and refineries that can present a relevant audit.
But not all of the suppliers adhere to that. From all 344 entities that supplied Volkswagen with 3TG in 2024, only 61% were assessed by the RMI. This number has been decreasing. Some companies don’t present any certificate of quality at all.
VW says working with RMI-checked smelters is its “objective” and that it “works to encourage and support suppliers” in completing the assessment.
The EU established rules for monitoring imports of 3TG metals in 2021, but they have so far not changed anything on the ground in Congo, according to a study conducted by the European Commission.
Only direct importers of the materials to the EU have to comply with new rules. When companies such as Volkswagen often do not import the materials themselves, the rules don’t apply to them directly.
In Germany, the ruling coalition of the conservative CDU/CSU bloc and the center-left SPD pledged in their 2025 coalition agreement to prevent “excessive regulations” on conflict minerals by the EU.
Edited by: Uwe Hessler
This article was developed with the support of Journalismfund Europe.
