The rapid expansion of illegal gold mining in Peru’s Amazon and border regions is reshaping criminal dynamics across the country as traditional coca-producing networks in the Apurímac, Ene and Mantaro Rivers Valley (VRAEM) and elsewhere increasingly invest capital and manpower in illicit mining operations.
High global gold prices, the ease with which illicit gold can be laundered into legal markets, and the challenges of policing vast Amazonian territories have accelerated the growth of illegal gold mining. The Monitoring of the Andes Amazon Program (MAAP), using satellite imagery, found that cumulative gold mining-related deforestation had reached 139,169 hectares across nine Peruvian regions by mid-2025. As illegal gold mining expands, it is becoming one of Peru’s largest criminal economies, and by some estimates, now exceeds drug trafficking in financial scale.
The expansion of illegal mining has been particularly pronounced in Peru’s Amazonian regions, where alluvial deposits are easier and less costly to exploit than hard-rock deposits in the Andes. According to Professor Ricardo Soberón, former director of the Center for Research on Drugs and Human Rights (CIDDH), “In the Andes you have to move 10 tons of earth to extract 10 grams of gold. In the jungles and the rivers, you move 3 tons of earth to get the same yield.”
Cross-regional criminal networks
The rise of Illicit gold mining is creating new cross-regional criminal networks as organizations traditionally associated with coca production diversify their investments. According to Dr. Cesar Ipenza Peralta of the Universidad del Pacífico, “many people from the VRAEM have migrated to different zones of the country… many drug traffickers see an opportunity,” because gold is more easily introduced into legal markets.
He continues, “many drug traffickers who were associated with the VRAEM and had operations in zones distant from or near the VRAEM are today linked to illegal mining… For example, drug traffickers from the VRAEM who were in Puerto Inca, in Huánuco, in another department of the Central Amazon, today dedicate themselves to illegal mining.”
Peru’s criminal structures generally consist of decentralized local networks rather than the nationwide, hierarchical structures seen elsewhere in the region, such as Colombia’s National Liberation Army (ELN), dissident factions of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), and the Clan del Golfo. “We have never had a cartel in Peru, and we don’t have a structured group that controls the entire country; rather, alliances between groups supply them with inputs,” observed Dr. Peralta.
Rather than seeking territorial control across multiple regions, Peru’s criminal structures are increasingly integrating through financial investment and operational alliances, laundering profits from coca production in the VRAEM through illegal mining in the Amazon. The expansion is economic rather than territorial.
In areas where both gold mining and coca production occur, the two illicit economies increasingly share supply chains, logistics networks, transportation routes, and local intermediaries. According to Soberón, “the capitals of cocaine that are received within Peru are easily invested in buying the machinery and the supplies for the auriferous activity… the two industries share logistics, they share supplies, they share territory, they share social actors, they share exit routes.”
Money laundering
Illegal gold mining has become particularly attractive to coca producers and drug traffickers because it offers an effective mechanism for laundering illicit proceeds. Once extracted, gold is difficult to trace, exists in multiple forms, and cannot be distinguished on international markets based on whether it originated from legal or illegal operations.
According to Soberón, “It’s very simple: Once you take the rock to the processing plants that are on the coast of Peru, the gold that comes out is already legal. There is no way to prevent it from entering the market as traditional export.”
The value of gold can also be manipulated by misclassifying its purity or form, allowing criminal organizations to conceal illicit profits through apparently legitimate commercial transactions. An investigation by Peruvian investigative outlet Ojo Público documented supply chains that relied on falsified documentation to disguise the origin and value of illegally extracted gold products. Once laundered into legal supply chains, the metal can be exported to international markets, including China, once of the world’s largest importers and processors of gold, making the illicit origin of the metal difficult to detect.
The scale of these illicit financial flows has made illegal mining one of Peru’s principal money-laundering mechanisms. According to Peru’s Financial Intelligence Unit (UIF), 55 percent of suspicious financial transactions linked to predicate offenses between January 2015 and June 2025 were associated with illegal mining.
The challenges of enforcement
The Peruvian government faces a difficult challenge in confronting the convergence of narcotics trafficking and illegal gold mining. The country’s extensive Amazonian river system spans thousands of kilometers, making sustained surveillance and enforcement both operationally complex and resource intensive.
From 2015 until 2019, Peru deployed police officers and military personnel to ranger posts throughout Madre de Dios to strengthen the state’s presence in key mining areas. Maintaining those remote positions, however, proved costly and logistically demanding, while only a small portion of the region’s river network could be effectively monitored.
Building on those efforts, the government launched Operation Mercurio in 2019, combining the Armed Forces, National Police, prosecutors, and environmental authorities in a sustained campaign to dismantle illegal mining camps in La Pampa. While the operation significantly reduced illegal mining in the immediate area, criminal groups adapted by shifting activity to other remote locations and protected areas. More recently, in early 2026, Peruvian authorities conducted joint military and police operations targeting renewed illegal mining activity in and around Tambopata National Reserve, underscoring both the government’s continued efforts and the adaptability of criminal networks.
Enforcement is further complicated by the blurred boundaries among illegal mining, legal operations, and artisanal mining. Some operators simultaneously participate in legal and illegal activities, while the legality of mined gold often depends on documentation and permitting rather than the extraction process itself. These overlapping systems make it difficult for authorities to determine the legal status of mining operations during inspections and create opportunities for criminal organizations to integrate illicit gold into legitimate supply chains.
For Peruvian security forces, the challenge is no longer simply combating narcotrafficking or illegal mining as separate crimes. Increasingly, the same criminal actors finance, transport, and protect both activities. Disrupting these interconnected networks will require sustained intelligence sharing, interagency coordination, and continued cooperation with regional partners to deny transnational criminal organizations the ability to diversify and expand their illicit operations.
