The illegal gold mining crisis in South America has serious implications for U.S. policy. Illegal gold trafficking enables drug traffickers and other bad actors to finance operations that harm Americans at a time when drug overdoses are a leading cause of death in the U.S. Moreover, the laundering of gold proceeds threatens the integrity of the U.S. financial system and represents a glaring loophole in the U.S. anti-money laundering and counter terrorism financing framework.

However, with that exposure comes leverage. By tightening oversight, closing legal loopholes, and restoring enforcement capacity, the U.S. can shift the cost-benefit calculus for criminal actors. The following recommendations translate these threats into concrete policy solutions.

Recommendations for U.S. Congress

1. Pass the United States Legal Gold and Mining Partnership Act. A new bill introduced by Senators Cornyn and Kaine would establish and implement a multi-year strategy to reduce the negative environmental and social impacts of illicit gold mining in the Western Hemisphere. While not a panacea, the bill is an important step in bringing together stakeholders, collecting information, and developing a long-term, bipartisan U.S. strategy to tackle this complex problem.
2. Make illegal gold mining a predicate offense for money laundering. Congress should amend the list of “specified unlawful activities” that constitute underlying offenses for money laundering. Currently, only a handful of transnational environmental crimes are included, such as wildlife trafficking. Adding illegal gold mining to the list would provide a meaningful tool for U.S. prosecutors working on illegal gold cases, helping them to pursue the illicit proceeds from this crime. Moreover, because money laundering charges tend to carry longer sentences, this could have an important deterrent effect, changing the “low risk, high reward” calculus that is associated with illegal gold mining.
3. Amend cross-border currency reporting requirements at the $10,000 threshold to include gold. Amending these requirements to include gold would be extremely impactful, since one of the methods of transporting illicit gold is through the use of human couriers flying into U.S. airports carrying undeclared gold bars.

Recommendations for the Executive Branch

1. Ensure timely, robust implementation of the Corporate Transparency Act (CTA). As has been discussed, a significant portion of illegally sourced gold is exported and imported via formal companies. Unfortunately, bad actors take advantage of the anonymity that limited liability companies (LLCs) provide, hiding their real names behind opaque business registration. Research by the FACT Coalition has found that, in cases of illegal gold mining in South America, shell and front companies were the single most common method used to move dirty gold and then launder the proceeds.95 Given these connections, the U.S. Administration should re-commit to full implementation of the CTA, a bipartisan U.S. law that would require collection of basic information about the real owners of companies, as a national security measure.
2. The U.S. State Department, in partnership with the Treasury Department, should create a new sanctions program to address illegal gold mining and other environmental crimes. Current sanctions programs focus on drug trafficking organizations, corruption, and other country-specific programs, but do not directly cover environmental crimes such as illegal gold mining. This is a major omission considering that environmental crimes are now a top revenue source for transnational organized crime groups.
3. The Department of Justice, in partnership with HSI and other relevant stakeholders, should step up enforcement and prosecution efforts against transnational criminal networks involved in the illicit gold trade. The last major U.S. case involving illegal gold mining and trafficking was in 2022. Yet each year, criminal groups are making billions of dollars in profits unchecked, all the while harming local communities and damaging our shared natural resources. Prioritizing illegal gold – and adequately resourcing prosecution efforts – can help to shift the balance of power back towards the rule of law.