The gold bull-market has a dirty secret
Gold is now better business than drugs for many gangs
THE MINERS’ chants filled the main square of Trujillo, a city on Peru’s northern coast. Many of them had travelled from Pataz, a province deep in the Andean hinterlands where a gang recently murdered 13 guards working in a gold mine. “There’s a lot of crime in the mountains,” said a man with a white hard hat. In response to the killings, Peru’s government imposed a month-long ban on mining in Pataz. But the protesters wanted to return to work. “The miners of Pataz are not criminals. We demand the right to work,” read a woman’s T-shirt.
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This article appeared in the The Americas section of the print edition under the headline “Is gold better business than drugs? ”
From the June 28th 2025 edition
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