11/17/2023 0 Comments Dredge mining group washington![]() The global demand for gold and the significant increase in its international prices have emboldened Colombia’s criminal groups to expand illegal gold mining operations, effectively harming Colombia’s environment and indigenous populations by conducting irresponsible extraction practices in Colombia’s natural reserves and rivers, poisoning water sources that Colombia’s inhabitants use, and sowing terror among the population.Ĭriminal groups such as former FARC dissidents use exploited gold to fund the groups’ illicit agenda, launder money on an industrial scale, making this activity more profitable than drug trafficking, the OAS DTOC found. Gold from Colombia accounts for 2 percent of the world’s gold production, but more than 70 percent of the gold extracted in Colombia is produced by illegal armed groups, the Organization of American States (OAS) Department against Transnational Organized Crime (DTOC) says in a February 2022 report. Criminal organizations including the National Liberation Army (ELN), dissident groups of the former Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), and other criminal gangs exploit Colombia’s large gold reserves, financing multiple criminal activities, such as the illegal arms trade and money laundering.Īccording to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), illegal mining exploitation in Colombia covers more than 64,000 hectares, 27,589 of which are located in indigenous community territories, InSight Crime, an organization that studies organized crime in Latin America and the Caribbean, said in a September 2021 report. Colombia’s gold mining industry has historically been rife with criminality, creating an immense black market for the precious metal.
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