Wednesday’s opening of the 27th INTERPOL Americas Regional Conference brought with it the deeply troubling warning that criminal syndicates in the region are increasingly employing illegal gold mining to move and conceal profits from the cocaine trade.

INTERPOL Secretary General Valdecy Urquiza described criminal groups that operate across several illicit markets at once. The same routes used to transport narcotics, he said, could also carry trafficked people, firearms and wildlife, while profits from cyber fraud could move swiftly  through cryptocurrency networks.

“A growing number of syndicates are solving this by moving their drug capital straight into illegal gold mining,” he said after describing the difficulty traffickers face in moving and concealing cash.

Mr Urquiza pointed to Operation Guyana Shield, conducted last December by authorities in Guyana, Brazil, French Guiana and Suriname, as an example of what investigators could uncover by following both the goods and the money. Officers seized gold and timber and traced mercury supplies and the proceeds behind them, he said.

INTERPOL reported that in January the operation involved more than 24,500 checks on people and vehicles and led to 198 arrests across the four jurisdictions. Among those detained were three men in Guyana suspected of gold smuggling and money laundering. INTERPOL said they were found with unprocessed gold and US$590,000 in cash.

INTERPOL President Lucas Philippe, addressing the same conference, said illegal mining increasingly intersected with firearms and drug trafficking, illicit finance and exploitation of people. He described Operation Guyana Shield as an illustration of that mix of crimes: officers looking into illegal gold mining also encountered firearms, cash, drugs, mercury and mining equipment.

Anyone with a remote understanding of the Guyana landscape would immediately recognize this country as a prime candidate for this phantasmagoria highlighted at the conference. All the elements are present here: poor control over borders, lax enforcement in gold mining fields, years of massive smuggling of gold in all directions, evidence of large scale drug trafficking as epitomized by the 2024 seizure of 4.4 tonnes of cocaine buried in bunkers in the northwest, smuggling of mercury, the flow of illicit firearms, human trafficking and also the unauthorized trade in wildlife.

All of these intersect at various times in different directions and also reflect on the shadowy movement of foreign currency which has created shortages for businessmen who have had to bear their chafe lest they annoy the government.

What worsens all of these problems is the high perception of and likelihood of entrenched corruption in all parts of the various chains that feed these illegal industries. The government and its law enforcement arms don’t appear to have a fix on the scale of these problems and a plan. The Ministry of Natural Resources has hyped up the recent arrests of a small number of illicit miners. This is hardly where the major threat is posed and as has always been the case with cocaine the big players have evaded capture and Guyana will remain on their radar.

The only hint of good news is that INTERPOL is developing a regional task force model to help police map criminal networks, identify senior targets and plan operations. Mr Urquiza spoke of one task force based at its regional bureau in Buenos Aires and another dedicated to the Caribbean. Under the model, national authorities would choose targets and plan actions, with INTERPOL providing support. He also said 14 countries from the Americas were participating in the pilot of INTERPOL’s Silver Notice system, which helps police seek information about assets linked to crime. 

INTERPOL could clearly be of immense assistance provided that the government is committed to this task. That commitment has been called into question by the state’s proclivity to want to control watchdogs and regulators. Its ongoing assault on the independence of the civil society component of the Multi Stakeholder Forum of the Guyana-Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative is a case in point.

The sobering news from this INTERPOL conference should be one of the missions taken up immediately by the Natural Resources sectoral committee of Parliament when the recess is over.  It should invite testimony from the security services, the Financial Intelligence Unit, the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission, the Guyana Gold Board and the Regions One, Seven, Eight and Nine administrations. The stakes are quite high.