The Costa Rican judicial police announced on Thursday the dismantling of a vast network of trafficking in gold illegally mined in Costa Rica and exported to the United States for an estimated value of $ 60 million.
Since April 2019, when the investigation began, 2.5 tons of gold have been exported to the United States, mainly to the cities of Houston, Los Angeles and Miami, detailed Walter Espinoza, the director. of the Judicial Police of Costa Rica.
The trafficking could also have been used for money laundering because the precious metal was declared at a value below that of the market, according to the Costa Rican prosecution.
Much of the ore was mined from the Crucitas deposit (north), near the Nicaraguan border. The Canadian mining company Infinito Gold had planned to exploit it, but the Costa Rican justice banned it to protect the environment.
However, the deposit, spanning 70 hectares, has been overrun by underground miners who mine for gold causing severe environmental damage through the use of cyanide and mercury to refine the ore.
The police carried out several operations in Crucitas to drive out the illegal miners, many of them Nicaraguan migrants, but they then returned very quickly to the deposit to resume their activity.
In April 2019, the airport police detected “a disproportionate increase” in the quantities of gold exported from the capital’s international airport, and alerted his colleagues in the judicial police.
“We were then able to establish that an organized group was working to get large quantities of gold out of our country”, explained the director of the judicial police.
The dismantled network was dedicated to buying the precious metal directly from the underground miners of Crucitas.
They also bought, to a lesser extent, gold illegally mined from a deposit located in the Corcovado Natural National Park, on the Pacific coast, in southwestern Costa Rica.
The network then took care of the export of gold, melted into ingots.
Thirty-three searches were carried out in “several parts of the country” during this “large-scale” operation, explained Mr. Espinoza.
At least 27 suspected traffickers have been arrested and charged in particular for mining offenses and environmental damage. Police seized gold bars, cash and drugs, the prosecution said.
The Crucitas mine project had met with strong opposition from residents and conservationists, who brought several legal actions, including to the Constitutional Council.
Costa Rica’s parliament banned surface mining in 2010, shortly after the Crucitas deposit was canceled to Canadian group Infinito Gold.
The project was approved following the lifting, under the presidency of Oscar Arias (2006-2010), of a moratorium on surface mining.
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