An illegal gold mine in the Madre de Dios department in the southeast of Peru, recorded in May 2024.
Photo: AFP/Ernesto Benavides
Last June, Peruvian customs officials discovered four tons of Mexico -smuggled mercury in a cargo ship with a target Bolivia. It was the largest load of the highly toxic, Silbrig, shiny liquid metal, which has ever been confiscated so far in an Amazon state. And yet it was just a drop on the hot stone. Triggered by high precious metal prices, Amazonia has been experiencing a cross -border gold rush for two decades, which has also multiplied trade and smuggling from mercury. Legal and illegal gold chopper use the heavy metal to bind fine gold particles from the river sediments. Large quantities of the heavy metal, which are considered to be a nerve poison, reach the environment with this type of gold extraction and burden air, soil and water.
A study by an international team of scientists published in the medical journal “Annals of Global Health” shows alarming high mercury concentrations in both fish and in the local population with serious health consequences in the Amazon areas affected by Brazil, Colombia and Peru.
The researchers describe the mercury contamination, especially for indigenous peoples, as “increasingly worrying”. They found the highest burden associated with health damage to the indigenous people of the Colombian Yaigojé Apaporis national park on the border with Brazil. The indigenous ones showed mercury values in the hair of an average of 23 µg/g, far above the limit set of only 1 μg/g set by the United States Research Council.
There is an urgent need for action, especially since the mercury pollution is promoted by the global demand for gold – a metal with a limited practical benefit, the main function of which is to accumulate assets in banks and safe. Whole ecosystems and indigenous populations are sacrificed for a merchandise that brings no significant benefits to humanity. “
According to a current report by the non -governmental organization Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), more than 200 tons of mercury from the Mexican mines were smuggled to Bolivia, Colombia and Peru from April 2019 to June 2025. The EIA estimates that with this amount of mercury in Amazonia “illegal” gold worth at least $ 8 billion was grown. Due to the further increasing gold price, the mercury price has reached a new record level of $ 330 per kilogram this year and thus triggered a new “mercury fever” in Mexico.
Large amounts of the nerve poison reach the environment.
According to official data from Mexico, the country exported a total of 740 tons of mercury between 2009 and 2021 mainly for gold extraction to Bolivia, 429 tons to Peru and 466 tons to Colombia. From these countries, smugglers also bring it to legal and illegal gold digger camps in Brazil.
The Institute of Escolas from São Paulo also certifies a lively mercury smuggling in the Amazon area, especially from Bolivia to Brazil. According to a study published in 2024, the legalized, i.e. state -permitted gold mines, promoted around 127 tons of the precious metal between 2018 and 2022. The gold miners used between 165 and 254 tons of mercury. However, Brazil officially imported only 68.7 tons during this period. This shows that between 96 and 185 tons of mercury may have been illegal origin.
The shift to the smuggled mercury may be because it is only half as expensive as it is legal. In addition, no cumbersome approval from the environmental agency is required.
Another clear indication of an increasing mercury smuggling is the drastic increase in gold exports and breakdown area in the past two decades in Brazil while at the same time decline in the official mercury imports. Between 2002 and 2022, the “legal” Brazilian gold exports multiply from 35 tons to 96 tons per year and the total area of the legal gold mines in the Amazon area from 68,000 hectares to 224,000 hectares.
In addition, illegal gold mining in protected areas and indigenous reserves in the Brazilian Amazon region also increased drastically. According to data from the scientific network Mapbiomomas, the entire area of the illegal gold mines increased from around 4,000 hectares to 36,000 hectares between 2000 and 2022. The official mercury imports fell from 67 tons to 15 tons per year.
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During this period, Bolivia has jumped up to the largest South American mercury importer. Between 2018 and 2022, Brazil’s neighbor was introducing 723 tons of mercury mainly from Mexico, Russia and Tajikistan, while it only exported 196 tons of gold. “Bolivia imported about ten times more mercury than Brazil, but only produced gold 1.5 times more,” said the Escolas study. It is therefore most likely that most of the “Bolivian” mercury will illegally get to Brazil.
The International Minamata Convention to reduce the use of mercury and to reduce the dangerous mercury emissions from 2013 allows the production of the metal until 2032.
In its report, on the other hand, the EIA demands that the mines in Mexico decommissioning: “Mercury should be treated as what it is: a highly toxic catalyst for related crimes such as human rights violations, arms trade, drug trafficking and illegal gold acquisition.” A further mercury production in Mexico will have a long -term long -term consequences for generations.
But even a stop of the Mexican mercury will probably only shift the smuggling routes. The world’s largest mercury producer is China, followed by Tajikistan, who has not yet signed the Minamata Convention.