DIRTY GOLD

A deep dive into a landmark U.S. prosecution of players in the transnational illicit gold trade.

The co-authors, all journalists who have worked at the Miami Herald, closely examine the grim, little-understood world of artisanal (small-scale) gold mining, rife with malfeasance, corruption, and ecological devastation, stretching from developing nations like Chile and Peru to Miami, where precious-metal conglomerates like Elemetal sought to dominate the gold market, particularly after the 2008 recession. The narrative follows a broad cast of businessmen, smugglers, and brokers, all of whom realized that shipping illicit Chilean gold through neighboring countries would enable ready sales to firms (Elemetal and others) using forged origin documents. The authors focus on the “three amigos,” macho, self-taught traders employed by Elemetal’s subsidiary, NTR Metals, who were eager to bend the rules and who tracked their smuggling and money laundering on phone apps, which later incriminated them. This misbegotten white-collar–crime story unfolds against a well-rendered historical background of how such activities have fractured the fragile environments and societies of developing nations in Latin America, where remote regions have been overrun by chaotic, destructive artisanal mining. “For Peruvian criminals,” write the authors, “gold had become far more lucrative than cocaine.” Eventually, however, the FBI and federal prosecutors built an in-depth prosecution of the scheme, endeavoring to “lay out a vivid portrait of illegal mining, gold smuggling, and money laundering across two continents, one that captured the widespread environmental damage to the Amazon rain forest and the powerful role of drug traffickers.” The authors write with a journalistic yet culturally attuned voice, but the narrative is sometimes repetitive in its frequent juxtaposition of the brutal conditions in the mine-ravaged rainforests with the wealth and colorful backstories of the key players as well as the determination and diligence of the various law enforcement agencies involved.

An authoritative consideration of “dirty” gold’s grip on the environment and role in rampant geopolitical corruption.