Ecuador, Peru, Combat Transborder Illegal Gold Trafficking

“Of the 10 criminal economies that exist in the country, it is by far the largest, as it affects fundamental rights, tax collection, and the environment,” former Peruvian Interior Minister Carlos Basombrío told Desde Adentro magazine, of Peru’s National Society of Mining, Petroleum, and Energy. “They are new mafias and criminal organizations, especially international ones, that enter some areas to compete for the control of this activity with the original illegal miners. These criminal organizations are linked to drug trafficking and settle in areas where there are violence problems.”

“These are dynamics that we are observing in these parts, and we know that there is a low state presence from both Peru and Ecuador,” Ebus added. “That has also caused organized crime to be able to expand.”

In the border area of both countries, smuggling and illegal mining bosses operate “at ease” under the protection of corrupt police officers, Peruvian weekly Hildebrant en sus Trece reported.

“We always see a convergence between illegal and legal economies in these Amazonian border areas,” Ebus said. “So yes, we can say that one business feeds another business, but the two sectors have an environmental impact, illegal profits are doubled with reinvestment and environmental impacts are multiplied, when drug money is reinvested in illegal mining.

The Autonomous Territorial Government of the Wampís Nation, a 1.3 million hectares area between the Loreto and Amazonas regions of Peru, has also denounced the advance of illegal miners in the Santiago River basin. An estimated 40 hectares of jungle have been damaged by this activity, Radio France International reported on March 22.

In March 2023, Ecuador and Peru’s Environment ministers met in the border area to discuss illegal mining, which is considered a threat to public safety. In response to this threat, the Ecuadorian and Peruvian armed forces began a series of special coordinated operations on the binational border.

According to Ecuadorian daily Primicias, the fight against illegal mining has been one of the focal points of the mirror operations carried out by the armed forces of both countries on the border, which also combat drug trafficking; arms, ammunition, and explosives trafficking; smuggling; irregular immigration, and other related crimes.

“The definitive and fundamental solution is to achieve full traceability of gold production. This will allow us to understand the dimension of the problem and how to tackle it, so that there is sustainable formalization over time,” Victor Gobitz, president of Peru’s National Society of Mining, Petroleum, and Energy, told El Comercio. “In informal mining, sticks of explosives are used. However, all large mining and part of medium mining uses explosives in bulk, not in sticks. So, it is not so difficult to attack the problem, because only five companies commercialize explosives for mining in Peru.”