Homeland Security Investigations' office in North Texas hosted a round table this week on international criminal operations running illegal mining operations in Central and South America. Thirty five agents from the U.S., Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru attended the event.
"Authorities don't normally have a mechanism to communicate or exchange information about observations they're making," said Elizabeth Powers, Rule of Law Division Chief with the U.S. State Department's Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs office in Bogota, Colombia.
Powers said the meeting gave the different countries a chance to meet together to share information, identify trends and build collaborative relationships.
"These types of events create real-time networks where folks can join a group chat and share information more easily than they can through traditional processes," she said.
Agents talked about how they follow money to find potential mining operations. In some cases, a group may be making much more than it is reporting. When an operation like that is spotted, investigators will work with local authorities to find the reason.
Since November of 2018, the price of gold has increased from about $1,200 per ounce to $2,000. HSI says that increase in price has led cartels to start mining gold illegally.
"These armed groups, what these cartels are doing is, like any good businessman, expanding their portfolio," said Special Agent Gabriel Uribe.
Uribe said cartels and criminal organizations are using routes they are already using for human and drug smuggling. He says cartels are using forced labor and child labor to mine for gold more cheaply to undercut legitimate businesses.
"The black market for the gold trade, that's something that's going to affect its economic value in the United States," he said.
Brian Vicente, HSI Regional Attache for Colombia, Ecuador and Peru, said the mining operations are also causing environmental damage.
"It's that gram of mercury that is contaminating 400,000 liters of water," he said. "It's about the deforestation that goes along with it and the destruction of the Amazon."
He said Homeland Security Investigations has been a lead agency on investigations, but other countries are becoming more interested in pursuing groups that exploit people or land.
Vicente said cartels will draw people with the promise of only a pittance, but children and adults who are desperate for any money may be exploited.
"You're not talking about urban areas. You're talking about difficult terrain, very rural, very out-there in the country, very hard to get to where people are struggling daily," he said.
In many areas with illegal mines, HSI Attache to Peru Paul Salamon says shanty towns will pop up that include other illegal activity.
"These towns are set up from scratch, basically," he said. "There are brothels set up. There are minors trafficked from Lima, usually from poor neighborhoods. They get taken and tricked, lured into legitimate jobs at restaurants and then they're trapped as slaves or miners."
Vicente said HSI has seen Central and South American countries work more with them, but the smuggling of gold also affects Americans.
"It's affecting our legitimate trade," he said. "It's affecting our economy, not just from the narco side of it or any other illicit activity, but the legitimate businessman, the gold industry we have here in the States. It's taking money from their hands and diverting it to these criminal organizations."
Powers said they held the meeting in North Texas because the area has become a hub for people and commerce headed across the country. DFW Airport is the second busiest in the world; Interstates 35, 30 and 20 provide road connections in all directions.
"There's a direct flight from Bogota to Dallas," she said. "What we've observed some people doing is just wearing jewelry and bringing hundreds of thousands of dollars across borders into our country for the purpose of sale of that illegally mined gold."
Powers said people wondering how these mining operations affect them can ask themselves where their gold is coming from, especially if a piece of jewelry is suspiciously cheap.
"Like we started to do with blood diamonds, start thinking about gold in that same way because I highly doubt 99.9% of Americans would want to be buying gold that supports drug traffickers or people who are trafficking children," she said. "That's a question I think we, as consumers, need to start thinking about is where the gold we buy comes from."
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