South American Crime Groups Are Going for Gold

Two main factors have driven organized crime groups to diversify into gold. The first is that, in the past few years, the price of cocaine has fallen—by as much as half in Europe—while the price of gold has soared, recording a year-over-year increase of 65 percent in 2025. Second, there is a lower risk of being arrested for smuggling illegal gold than for drug trafficking, largely because gold “is not an inherently illegal product,” said Julia Yansura, one of the authors of the FACT Coalition report—as opposed to cocaine. “If a policeman stops you and you’re carrying a backpack with some gold that is illegally sourced, you’re probably not going to jail because it would be really hard to determine that that product is illegally sourced.”

According to Yansura, the main use for illegally sourced gold is investment, such as in gold bars, especially “during uncertain economic times.” Prior to export, criminal organizations, such as the National Liberation Army (ELN) in Colombia, frequently launder illicit gold from the Amazon into bars and other forms so that it appears to have been legally sourced when it is shipped to buyers in Europe, the Middle East, and the United States, she said.

This laundering makes it impossible to know the exact dollar value of illegal gold exports, Yansura said. However, in 2022, Colombia’s comptroller general’s office estimated that 85 percent of the country’s gold exports were illegally sourced. As of 2024, the United States was the largest single importer of Colombian gold, at $1.43 billion, followed by India ($580.9 million), Italy ($477 million), and the United Arab Emirates ($429.6 million).

A lack of legal clarity about what constitutes illegal gold mining has provided a gray area for criminal groups to exploit in some countries. Though small-scale artisanal gold mining is generally legal across South America, operations that involve forced labor, encroachment on Indigenous lands without permission or prior consultation, and a disregard for environmental laws are among the hallmarks of illicit mining across the continent.

Peru is a case in point. The country has a government registry for informal miners known as Reinfo. As long as informal miners are “on this indefinite list that keeps being extended and extended and extended, they can’t really face criminal charges because they’re in the process of formalization, which is a very problematic gray area,” Yansura said.

Among the most damaging practices stemming from illegal gold mining is its use of mercury, which is highly toxic. Illicit groups can quickly and cheaply use mercury to extract gold from ore and form an amalgam; the amalgam is heated; the mercury evaporates and leaves the gold behind. Vaporized mercury then settles in soil and waterways, contaminating drinking water and fish, and leading to mercury poisoning, according to the World Health Organization.

Although the element’s use is widely restricted or banned in gold mining in South America, in recent years, Shiguango said, mercury has shown up in blood tests among members of her community, and there have been increases in illnesses and deaths that she links to mercury poisoning. “Right now, there are young people who are dying, young people are dying at 28 years old, 25 years old because they already have cancer at that age,” she said, adding that her 20-year-old son suffers from headaches and memory issues—problems that Shiguango suspects come from mercury ingestion.

As illegal gold mining has grown in the Amazon, the practice has also contributed to higher levels of deforestation, the FACT Coalition said in its report. In Ecuador, criminal gangs such as Los Lobos—which the U.S. State Department designated a foreign terrorist organization in September 2025—have deployed heavy machinery to clear vast portions of the rainforest in order to extract gold from the ground, according to the report.

Organized crime groups behind illegal mining operations bribe local officials to look the other way, Shiguango said: “All these authorities have already been bought off by these miners.” She added that her activism had led to threats, saying she gets “threatening calls” every day. “I can’t walk freely in the street anymore.”

Furthermore, conflicts between illegal and legal gold miners have had deadly consequences, as criminal groups seek to take over areas operated by legal mining ventures. In May 2025, 13 gold mine workers were kidnapped and killed by members of an illicit gold mining group in Peru’s Pataz province. Warnings by Indigenous groups about mercury contamination led the Andean Community trade bloc in October to order Peru to urgently reform its laws to fight illegal gold mining and mercury trafficking, as well as to seize machinery and mining equipment used by illicit miners.

Family members of workers who were killed by illegal miners after being held hostage for several days hug outside the local morgue in Trujillo, Peru, on May 5, 2025.REUTERS