Illegal Gold Miners? Amazon Rainforest?

“A large part of the gold that’s commercialized in the world comes stained by blood and human rights abuses,” said Julián Bernardo González, vice president of sustainability for Continental Gold, a Canadian mining company with operations in Colombia that holds legal titles and pays taxes, unlike many smaller mining operations.

A map compiled by environmental group Amazon Geo-Referenced Socio-Environmental Information Network shows 2,312 illegal mining sites in 245 areas across six countries, which the group called an “epidemic.”

In Latin America, criminals see mining and trading precious metals as a lucrative growth business, carefully hidden from U.S. consumers who flaunt gold around their necks and fingers but have no idea where it comes from — or who gets hurt. The narcos know their market is strong: America’s addiction to the metal burns as insatiably as its craving for cocaine. NTR, for instance, was the subsidiary of a major U.S. gold refinery that supplied Apple and 67 other Fortune 500 companies, as well as Tiffany & Co., according to a Miami Herald analysis of corporate disclosures.

READ: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/article194187699.html#storylink=cpy