Mining gold is safer and more valuable than exporting drugs, prompting many South American criminals to make the switch.
A recent military raid in Columbia found 54 kilos ( about 1905 troy ounces ) of gold from a group of suspected cocaine producers.
What I found most interesting about this story is not that South American drug manufactures are protecting against inflation and choosing to preserve their wealth in gold, its was the fact that the gold the authorities found was not bought, stolen, and they did not receive the gold in exchange for drugs, instead the gold was "illegally mined". Dirty gold as some are calling it, is the new cocaine in Colombia. Colombia’s illegal mining industry generates about $2.4 billion a year, approximately 3x more than the country’s cocaine industry, that is according to estimates, and like cocaine, the vast majority of illegal gold is being sent overseas to Europe and the United States
About 2/3 or 66% of Columbia's gold is mined illegally according to a report from the United Nations. Gold as been at the core of life for those living on the west coast of South America dating back thousands of years. Today small scale gold mining still accounts for more than half of the local economy in the Buenos Aires region of Columbia. About 10 years ago gold was still mined the old fashioned way a simple process scooping up gravel with a wooden pan and sifting it to reveal the shiny flakes and golden nuggets. Nowadays most mines mix mercury with a gold-bearing material producing a mercury-gold amalgam that’s then heated, and when the mercury vaporizes it leaves behind the precious metal. The mercury they use to separate the gold is burned off into the open air after being handled with no protection then the rest is dumped into a pit or worse into the river.
The rise in mercury use is causing negative effects on the health of the local people not connected with the mining. The increasing numbers of illegal mines is causing concerns of erethism, a neurological disorder derived from mercury poisoning, also known as mad hatters disease. Mad hatter disease was an occupational disease among hatmakers, caused by chronic mercury poisoning in the 18th and 19th centuries, where the majority of men’s felt hats were made using rabbit fur, In order to make the fur stick together to form felt, hatters needed to brush it with mercury. Just last year, the Colombian government released a report that documented 1,126 cases of mercury poisoning from 2013 to 2015) a rise of over 750% from previous years.
For decades, Colombia has been synonymous with the drug trade and although it remains the world’s largest cocaine producer more and more criminal gangs and gorillas are turning to illegally mining precious metals. Chocó is also rich in other mineral resources like platinum. Its no coincidence that Chocó, a region ultra rich in natural resources, has become a center of conflict, with thousands of people killed or forcibly displaced. Criminal groups like to operate in territories belonging to indigenous and Afro-descendant communities, which are much like native American reservations in the United States. 96 percent of the land in Chocó is collectively owned by indigenous or Afro-descendant peoples, and Colombian law considers owning their own territory a fundamental right for these groups. For centuries their livelihoods revolved around hunting, fishing, farming and small-scale artisan mining. The system was designed to allow small-scale miners to benefit from the global gold trade, but the reality is that it has now been co-opted and taken over by criminals.
Mercury pollution has built up in the rivers of Chocó as a result of the rapid growth of mining operations. In 2009 the government revealed that they estimated that up to four tons of mercury had been washed into Río Quito, one of the tributaries of the Atrato River. In 2014, the Santos administration pledged to get rid of mercury-based gold mining by 2018, however with most of the mines being illegally operated by violent criminal enterprises its just not that simple.
In some ways, the war on mining makes the war on drugs look easy, said Anibal Fernández, Colombia’s vice minister of defense. In Colombia, every step of cocaine production is illicit, from growing the coca, to processing it, to moving it and selling it. “Every link in that chain is illegal and going after it is very clear,” he said. “With illegal mining, once gold is gold, it’s a legal product. ... And that’s forced us to be much more focused on how we fight it.”
Police blow up excavators used in an illegal gold mining operation near the community of Barbacoas. PHOTO; Juan Manuel Barrero || Miami Herald
Illegal mining operations generate approximately $2.4 billion a year, which according to intelligence agencies is three times more than the cocaine industry
Despite the country’s efforts to control the trade, about 80 percent of Colombia’s gold is being mined illegally, without permits or even basic environmental precautions. Ironically as the financial incentive of mining is beginning to be greater than that of the cocaine trade, the negative environmental impact is even harming the coca crops further diminishing the value and viability of the drug trade. **“Today, criminal mining moves more resources to illegal gangs, to guerrilla groups, to mafias than drug trafficking itself,”** warned President Juan Manuel Santos.
In Colombia, illegal gold mining is the largest cause of deforestation. A study carried out by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) reports that nearly 85,000 hectares of land have been negatively affected by mining. The unregulated use of mercury and cyanide has poisoned water and wildlife to such an extent that some riverside communities in northern Colombia have quit catching and eating fish. The illicit mining operations produce so much silt and debris that they can stop a river in its tracks, cutting of vital water sources for animals and people living down stream.
As an anarchist and capitalist, I believe that drugs should be legal, and that government restrictions and regulations are most often a bad thing for the economy. I think that maybe if drugs were legal to grow and distribute that cartels, and guerrilla groups would no longer exist as the inflated prices of the black market is what fuels their existence and funds their exploits. That beings said, we has human beings, as members of tribes and larger communities have a responsibility to care for and preserve the environment. There are no easy solutions to this situation, similar to most things, more government is not the answer. Raising awareness to the issues is.
The ugly side of shining: digging for ore deposits destroys the land and the unregulated use of mercury and other chemicals pollutes the watershed. SOURCE LUIS ROBAYO/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
*This article is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Danny F. Quest along with a link to this source_
These people's are polluting our society and environment. people from every place, every state, every country should protect their country by ending this harmful drugs. These drugs damage our iner system, and cause us death. you should protest.
I shubham chakraborty, I am protesting...