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The gold is not “from the Rhine”, but from crime

2022-06-24T11:24:50.348Z


The treasure that generated joys and misfortunes throughout American history now poses new challenges


General aerial view of the area known as La Pampa, the largest illegal mining camp located in the southern Amazon region (Peru), in 2019. Ernesto Arias (EFE)

The voracity for gold of the conquerors of the sixteenth century moved them to emigrate to American lands seeking rapid and concrete enrichment.

And it allowed, by the way, that the Hispanic crown had a material base for two centuries of wars and to finance lavish spaces in the peninsula.

From that encounter between two worlds emerged a Latin American continent decimated in many aspects, but, at the same time, with the richness and identity that it has today.

The wars during the reign of Philip II against France, the Netherlands, the Ottoman Empire and England had a large part of their monetary sustenance in Indian gold.

Physical works like the cathedral of Seville, with its exuberant amount of Indian gold, including the lavish main altarpiece by Pieter Dancart, would not have been possible without the gold from Peru that poured in through the Guadalquivir.

Gold, the source of happiness and misfortune throughout American history, now poses new challenges.

The illegal and informal exploitation that takes place in some countries has had a dramatic impact on a brutal deterioration of the environment, sexual exploitation and the generation of unpunished criminal structures.

The hardest hit area would be the region of Madre de Dios, Peru, on the border with Bolivia and Brazil, although the Amazon Network for Socio-Environmental Information has detected several areas in the affected Amazonian countries.

This is particularly serious in Peru given the immense relative weight of mining and, particularly, the exploitation and export of gold.

Peru is the largest gold producer in Latin America and eighth in the world;

gold recently represented close to 20% of Peruvian exports.

A solvent report from the Department against Transnational Organized Crime of the Organization of Americans (OAS), published recently -which unfortunately has not had the impact it deserved- describes some of the most relevant issues in the drama linked to the

aurum peruvianus

.

This and other sources of information makes international trade marked by its lack of transparency and darkness.

Four issues stand out.

First, the huge gap between formally registered gold production and that actually exported.

Strangely, less is produced than what is exported, strange, isn't it?

In 2019, according to the aforementioned OAS report, the gap reached more than two million ounces of gold exported above the officially existing production.

If between 2015-2019 720 tons of gold were “produced”, a curious thing is that more than 2,200 MT have been exported.

Second, the demolition of the environment and, particularly, of the Amazon forest, which has been produced, among other sources, by voracious informal mining.

With at least 250,000 informal miners who, supplied with mercury and cyanide, extract gold from rivers, streams and streams, leaving behind a wasteland of desolation and aridity that can only be recovered after several generations.

Third, criminal structures, sustained by their articulation with the urgency of people who are usually very poor, who migrate to these areas due to the “gold rush”.

And that it lacks working capital and networks for the commercialization of the extracted gold, which is why it usually ends up being the weakest link of criminal organizations that provide capital and inputs (mercury) and that take the lion's share by illegally exporting the golden metal. , usually to bordering countries.

Criminal structures that, by the way, impose their own rules in the areas of illegal and informal exploitation, articulating their actions with human trafficking networks, in particular the exploitation of girls and young women recruited, in general, in the poorest areas of the Andean heights.

Fourth, a dark and not very transparent international trade and the also dark interaction between the illegal and predatory exploitation of gold with formal mining companies.

The OAS report reveals the complicity of "well-established" companies that, turning a blind eye to the origin of the product, are the means for exporting this gold of illegal origin, "hiding its origin through transactions and falsified documentation.

Then they would include it in their exports, as if it were their own production.

In this serious scenario of destruction, crime and impunity, the authority seems to be overwhelmed and overwhelmed by reality.

The main mining business association would seem to be a mere silent witness to this reality.

Three challenges arise from this bleak reality.

On the one hand, to go from nothing to a strategy of effective coordination between neighboring countries that allows at least to mitigate the traffic of nefarious inputs such as mercury, as well as the illegal export and marketing of gold resulting from operations that are also illegal.

An articulation between Peru and Bolivia sounds particularly indispensable for a comprehensive and operational coordination in the systematic exchange of information and joint operations.

It would be necessary to begin, for example, with something as elementary as the prohibition in Bolivia of the importation of the disastrous mercury, prohibited in Peru but which is smuggled in from the highland country.

Second, the inescapable responsibility of the main gold importing countries from Peru.

That they should not continue to profile themselves in the face of a situation in which it is clear that part of the gold imported to the four countries to which more than 90% of Peruvian gold is exported - Switzerland, Canada, the US and India - could come from illegal sources.

One out of every three dollars that enters Switzerland for imports without an effective system of verification of origin.

In the international gold trade, known for its lack of transparency, policies of effective monitoring of the product from its origin are essential, based on cooperation in intelligence, it is absolutely unavoidable.

Finally, a sustained and serious policy to promote the formalization of those who are today on the blurred border between informality and illegality.

The formulas that have been applied in Peru for ten years with a registry of gold traders and processors and other measures with abstruse legal and administrative regulations that have been completely inoperative have failed miserably.

After that period, less than 2% have completed the formalization process, so an in-depth review of strategies and regulations on the matter cannot wait.

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Source: elparis

All news articles on 2022-06-24

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