In the past year, toddlers have been found working in gold mines, and miners have paid drug cartels for digging rights. Workers in Colombia suffer from mercury poisoning, while a boy in Madagascar drinks from an underground wastewater pipe. Despite certification standards, this gold enters the supposedly tightly controlled marketplace of Wall Street financiers, central banks, and government mints.
The gaping hole in the mainstream gold market is that those tasked with keeping dirty gold out rarely visit the mines. The London Bullion Market Association (LBMA), the industry's closest thing to a regulator, has repeatedly allowed gold mined by criminal gangs, drug cartels, and children. In one case, the association helped a refiner paper over apparent violations.
Human rights abuses are often obvious if you show up and ask. Earlier this year, a mine in Northern Colombia revealed miners paying a drug cartel for work rights. The gold was certified to the industry's highest standards and sold to a U.S. Mint supplier. Similarly, President Trump allowed gold imports from Venezuela before independent inspectors could visit the mines. Venezuelan mines are linked to corruption, and the national gold company is designated a U.S. security threat.
The LBMA, run by the world's biggest banks and refiners, was mainly concerned with gold purity and weight until 1987, when the Bank of England passed oversight to the group. Over the past two decades, a price run-up fueled an illegal-mining boom in some of the world's poorest places, leading to deaths, environmental destruction, and criminal exploitation.
Source: New York Times Top Stories · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing