From the explosives used to extract it to the plants that process it, illegal gold in Latin America runs through links in the supply chain that often go overlooked. From CONNECTAS, we revisit two investigations from our archive that exposed these links — ones authorities constantly miss.
Illegal Dynamite: The Routes of Peru’s Black Market of Mining Explosives
Tonnes of explosive artifacts exported to Bolivia are smuggled back into the country through the border. Illegal and informal miners easily acquire this material mostly to extract gold.
Even though in La Rinconada de Puno (one stop in the explosives’ route) small grocery stores retail dynamite in plain sight, the Peruvian Customs Office has only seized the illegal goods on two occasions since 2019.
Tonnes of dynamite legally exported from Peru to Bolivia are smuggled back across the border—often hidden among clothes, food, and household goods.
Enforcement is nearly nonexistent: Peru’s Customs Office in Puno, the country’s top smuggling hotspot, made zero explosive seizures between 2019 and 2023.
Arequipa is the región in Peru with the most registered miners, but still less than 10% 10% of them legally requested dynamite purchase permits.
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Mineral Processing Plants: The Overlooked Link of Illegal Gold
Organized crime forcibly gained control of a key step in the production of gold in Ecuador: mineral processing plants, in charge of processing the gold at artisanal and small-scale mining (ASGM) level. The lack of official control turned the plants into an easy target for extortion and for processing illegal gold.
Organized crime has forcibly seized control of gold processing plants in Ecuador’s Azuay and El Oro provinces, extorting owners and forcing “free washes” of illegal gold under threat of violence.
Regulatory gaps are stark: oversight and state protection are virtually absent.
Export data hints at massive undeclared flows: Ecuador reported $76.7 million in gold exports to China in 2019, while China recorded $339.2 million in imports from Ecuador that same year.
This text was translated with the assistance of AI
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