Why Has Peru Struggled to Limit Illegal Gold Mining?

 Regionally, illegal mining has surpassed cocaine as Latin America’s most lucrative criminal enterprise, financing authoritarian regimes (like Venezuela’s Maduro) and driving 48 percent of Peru’s illicit financial flows. High gold prices—now exceeding $3,000 per ounce—intensify incentives, with mercury contamination and deforestation causing irreversible ecological harm in biodiverse zones like Madre de Dios, where 94 percent of residents show mercury poisoning. 

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