A gold mine in Colombia, a drug trafficking gang, a Chinese company, dozens of dead and 200 million dollars stolen. These could be the perfect ‘ingredients’ for an action or thriller movie, but no. All of these are components of a completely true story and whose struggle for power continues to be fought underground.
According to local media reports, which have been echoed by the Wall Street Journalthe situation in the Buriticá gold mine, in Antioquia, has escalated in recent times to the point of taking it to the limit.
To better understand what happens in the mine, you have to know the main actors: a drug trafficking gang and the Chinese company Zijin Mining Group, which took control of the mine in 2020 after purchasing it from the Canadian company Continental Gold. But the plans have not gone as the Asians expected and the panorama in these last four years has become much more than dangerous.
According to data provided from Colombia, it is estimated that drug traffickers have taken control of 3.2 tons of gold, which would be equivalent to about 200 million dollars, after the criminal gang has seized up to 48 kilometers of mine tunnels.
This situation, logically, did not please the Chinese company, so they chose to hire private security to prevent further looting and recover the gold stolen by drug traffickers. But this move by the Asian company only served to worsen the situation at the mine and unleash combats and murders of workers and security members.
In addition, it is important to know another protagonist group, the Clan del Golfo, who are responsible for preserving the safety of clandestine miners, and are characterized by using extreme violence. According to Colombian authorities, they have managed to expand their activity to a total of 28 countries. Their participation in this matter, as you can imagine, is not free, but they do it because they will keep a part of the loot.
Thus, on the one hand there are the drug traffickers and on the other the Clan del Golfo, who work in a coordinated manner to continue stealing gold from the mine from the Chinese company, which has already reported the death of dozens of workers in clandestine combats underground. .
It must be remembered that mining activity is extremely dangerous, and in the current situation it becomes especially dangerous, since fighting is added to possible landslides or the inhalation of polluting gases.
Faced with this situation, Zijin Mining Group decided to sue the Colombian authorities for their inaction in the face of such serious events and even more so when the Chinese company invested large economic amounts in the country. Thus, they announced that they were going to denounce the Colombian government before the International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) and demand a total of 500 million dollars from the state.
