Investigating How Illegal Gold Gets Into the Legitimate Supply Chain

GIJN is co-publishing this latest “how they did it” article from the Pulitzer Center about a reporting project that featured one of its Rainforest Investigative Network fellows.

Gold products bought in the EU , the US , and Switzerland are labelled “responsibly sourced” This promise, as our reporting in five countries shows, is misleading at best and, in the worst cases, a lie.

Sicex: A Colombian online customs database was actually quite helpful to confirm some shipments, not even related to Colombia , but to Panama and Switzerland .

We decided that a single-shipment story would be easily ignored by the companies involved and public interest would be limited.

The French Guiana part would be the most difficult, physically, but the most straightforward in terms of reporting goals: We wanted to see illegal gold mining taking place and the police combating it.

The London Bullion Market Association is the main certifier of the world gold market.

To be able to trade on the world market, gold needs to go through an LBMA-certified refinery.

According to the World Gold Council , only 30% of all gold going through refineries every year is from recycled origin.

EU authorities say they are not able to control the supply chains upstream.