Complicit Dossier

Financial enablers and gatekeepers · state-owned commercial bank with foreign branch · Sudan / UAE (Abu Dhabi)

El Nilein Bank (Abu Dhabi branch)

  • Part of the SAF or state-controlled
  • Grade A: Official recordStrongest record: official record
  • 2 documented ties · 2 steps from the SAF

Also recorded as: Al Nilein Bank; Nilein Bank; Bank of Nilein

Chatham House: 'The Port Sudan authorities depend mainly on the Abu Dhabi branch of the state-owned El-Nilein Bank to manage international transactions, a critical asset considering Sudan’s post-coup international isolation.' STPT: gold exporters deposit proceeds in Bank of Khartoum or Nilein branches in Abu Dhabi. Listed by CBOS as a correspondent bank (AED).

Response

No response is recorded. Named parties have not yet been asked for comment.

Records

3

Each record carries its own grade. A grade describes the source for that record, not the actor.

Grade A: Official record

Register: licensed by the Central Bank of the UAE as a foreign bank in Abu Dhabi (register of August 2026)

2023-01 to 2026-08

The Central Bank of the UAE's public register 'as of August 2026' lists El Nilein Bank (بنك النيلين) as entry 33 under Banks: licence type 'Foreign Bank', category 'Islamic Retail', head office Abu Dhabi, identification number 01.02.02.034.1976.01. The same entry appears in the registers of January 2023 and October 2025. The licence was therefore still in force more than a year after the August 2025 rupture between the UAE and the Port Sudan authorities. The register gives no officers or shareholders.

›Research notes

PDF downloaded and text-extracted on 3 Oct 2026. The digits '1976' in the identification number suggest the year of licence; the register does not say so.

  1. 1Central Bank of the UAE: CB Register as of August 2026 · centralbank.ae · Aug 2026
  2. 2CB Register as of October 2025 · centralbank.ae · Oct 2025
  3. 3CB Register as of January 2023 · centralbank.ae · Jan 2023

NamesUAE

Grade B: Corroborated

El Nilein Bank (Abu Dhabi branch)

2023-04 to present (status after Aug 2025 UAE trade halt unknown)

Chatham House: 'The Port Sudan authorities depend mainly on the Abu Dhabi branch of the state-owned El-Nilein Bank to manage international transactions, a critical asset considering Sudan’s post-coup international isolation.' STPT: gold exporters deposit proceeds in Bank of Khartoum or Nilein branches in Abu Dhabi. Listed by CBOS as a correspondent bank (AED).

Response
No response located in the sources reviewed.
Sanctions
None found in OFAC SDN / EU / UK lists checked 2026-10-03
  1. 1Chatham House, 'Gold and the war in Sudan' (Soliman & Baldo) · chathamhouse.org · 25 Mar 2025
  2. 2Sudan Transparency and Policy Tracker (STPT), 'Fueling Sudan's War: How Gold Exports and Smuggling Are Prolonging the Conflict' · sudantransparency.org · 16 Oct 2024
  3. 3Al Jazeera, 'Drones, gold, and threats: Sudan's war raises regional tensions' · aljazeera.com · 13 May 2025
  4. 4Central Bank of Sudan, 'Correspondents Bank' page (undated; accessed 2026-10-03) · cbos.gov.sd · 3 Oct 2026

NamesBank of KhartoumCentral Bank

Grade B: Corroborated

El Nilein Bank Abu Dhabi - still the main government channel two months after the UAE rupture (Reuters)

Mar 2025 - Oct 2026

Reuters, 21 October 2025: 'Most government transactions go through the Abu Dhabi branch of Sudan's El Nilein Bank.' The report post-dates the UAE's halt to flights and port traffic in early August 2025 and is independent of Chatham House, which said the same in March 2025. The central bank's correspondent page, re-read on 3 October 2026, still lists El Nilein Bank, Abu Dhabi (SWIFT NILB AE AA) for dirhams, euros and US dollars.

Response
No statement from El Nilein Bank or the UAE central bank was found.
›Research notes

Searched for any UAE central bank action against the branch (Arabic and English): none found. The only UAE central bank branch actions surfaced were against Banque Misr (Aug 2026) and Russia's MTS Bank. Whether the branch still clears dollars is not documented. The central bank's Q1 2026 trade table shows exports to the UAE down to US$7.7m in the quarter, so gold proceeds no longer arrive there in volume.

  1. 1Reuters (Khalid Abdelaziz, Nafisa Eltahir) via Al-Monitor: Sudan pound suffers as de facto UAE flight ban hits gold exports · al-monitor.com · 21 Oct 2025read via summary
  2. 2Central Bank of Sudan: Correspondent banks (undated page, re-read 3 Oct 2026) · cbos.gov.sd · undated

NamesUAERussia

2 more records below grade A (corroborated, single-source or unverified). Change “Evidence shown” to see them.

Relationships

2

← means the other party acts on this one; → means this one acts on the other.

Money · 2

1 more relationship below grade A (corroborated, single-source or unverified). Change “Evidence shown” to see it.

Dated events

1

  1. Reuters: most government transactions still go through El Nilein Bank's Abu Dhabi branch; alternative gold markets in Qatar, Oman, Egypt and Saudi Arabia had not yet worked out. al-monitor.com

    Grade B: Corroborated

1 more event below grade A (corroborated, single-source or unverified). Change “Evidence shown” to see it.

Geography

Tags come from the recorded jurisdiction and from place names in the records. Coordinates on the map are approximate.

Based in
Sudan, United Arab Emirates
Also named
Russia (1)
Places
Port Sudan, Khartoum, Abu Dhabi

Position in the network

Derived by analysing the documented relationships. Nothing in this section is a finding.

Still connected to the SAF when only official records are counted.

›Possible links to investigate · 2