The US is Colombia's top gold customer — and cartels know it

• Gold's surge to $5,000 per ounce draws criminal groups in Colombia, reshaping illicit industries.
• Illegal gold mining in Colombia now surpasses cocaine in profit for organized crime networks.
• US demand for Colombian gold complicates efforts to combat illegal mining and money laundering.

As gold surpasses $5,000 per ounce, its record-setting rally is reshaping more than investment portfolios. The spike has drawn the attention of criminal groups in Colombia, who are focusing their efforts more and more on this precious metal.

"We're talking billions and billions of dollars a year in dirty money," said Julia Yansura, the program director for environmental crime and illicit finance at the Washington, DC—based FACT Coalition, who tracks how dirty money enters the United States.

In 2024, Colombia exported $4.1 billion worth of gold, according to UN trade data. The United States imported roughly $1.5 billion of that, making it the largest single destination. This ties American markets to a boom that officials and analysts say is transforming Colombia's criminal economy.

"As the number one destination for Colombian gold, the US is involved," Yansura said.

In May and July, Business Insider visited gold mines across Colombia and spoke with miners, rescue workers, and policy analysts about how soaring prices have made gold Colombia's most profitable illicit industry — and how much of that gold ultimately flows north.

See the documentary of our visit below, and keep reading to learn how gold became Colombia's new cocaine.

As US demand rises, criminal groups adapt

For decades, cocaine defined Colombia's criminal economy. Drug trafficking financed armed groups and shaped US enforcement policy. Anti-money-laundering systems in the United States were largely designed to track narcotics proceeds moving through banks.

That dominance has shifted in recent years. Now, in Colombia, "we can say totally uncontroversially that illegal gold mining generates more money for organized crime than the drug trade," Yansura said.

"The price of cocaine has sort of stalled out," Yansura added, pointing to overproduction in Colombia and other countries. The value of gold, by contrast, has surged, and criminal groups have recalculated accordingly.

"They see where the money is easy to be made, and that's where they're going to go," Yansura said. However, it's not like cocaine is completely out of the picture.

Felipe Botero Escobar, who is based in Colombia and leads the Andean regional office of the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, says today's networks no longer focus on a single commodity.

"We are seeing a face in a different type of organized crime in the region," he said, adding, "Organized crime groups are actually looking to control criminal ecosystems rather than specific criminal markets."

These "criminal ecosystems" blend legal and illegal revenue streams, with gold becoming an additional player in their strategy. "It's not that now gold is better than cocaine," Botero said. "It's just complementary."

Cocaine profits often finance illegal mining operations, and the gold those mines produce can generate new revenue and help legitimize earlier drug earnings, Botero argued.

"You're gaining from the cocaine, then you're reinvesting gold, and then you're gaining legal money coming from that gold," he said.

Why gold moves more easily than cocaine

Cocaine is inherently illegal. Gold is not.

If someone in airport customs is caught with a bag of cocaine, they're going to jail, but it's not so clear-cut with gold, Yansura explained.

That key difference lowers the risk of transporting and exporting the metal — including into the United States — even when it was extracted illegally.

Complicating the matter is that much of Colombia's gold is exported through formal trade channels — commercial shipments declared to customs and processed through official export documentation. Once illegally mined gold enters formal paperwork, it becomes difficult to distinguish from legally sourced metal, Yansura said.

Moreover, the proceeds from illegal mining are laundered through shell or front companies located in Colombia, the US, and elsewhere, Yansura explained. "So we have this problem with anonymous companies," she said, and "unfortunately, there are a lot of ways to hide who is really behind that company."

"You might be thinking, illicit gold, it's going to be smuggled. Not really," Yansura added. "A lot of it is exported as though it were a totally legal product."

The enforcement systems designed to deter this type of criminal activity are outdated, Botero said. "We have a whole system from the banks to actually control assets and bank accounts and suspicious transactions," Botero said. "But all of it was designed for drug business."

Without the right type of enforcement systems in place, this increases the risk of illicit gold moving through the financial system undetected.

A recent World Wide Fund for Nature UK report surveyed more than 600 finance professionals across 22 countries. The report found that over 80% of financial institutions, including those in the US, were at risk of exposure to dealings with illegal mining for gold, cobalt, tungsten, and other materials.

In the US, specifically, over 90% of financial institutions were exposed to illegal mining risk. Of those, 49% said they don't screen specifically for it, 47% have no internal policies addressing it, and 61% don't provide staff training on those risks, according to internal survey data for the WWF-UK report, which the authors shared with Business Insider.

"If we want to help shut down this problem, I think, we need to do more from the US side," Yansura said, adding that "the financial sector is massively exposed to these risks, yet they've received very little guidance from US regulators about how they should be managing them."

The US Customs and Border Protection did not respond to Business Insider's request for comment.

The danger remains at the source

While international demand remains strong, miners bear the risks.

In Marmato, a town about 4,300 feet above sea level in the Andes, miners descend up to 2,000 feet underground in aging tunnels. James Rotavista leads a team of about 60 men.

"There's the risk of being crushed in a cave-in," he told Business Insider.

When explosives are used to blast new rock, workers have minutes to escape toxic gases before returning underground to haul out sacks weighing roughly 55 pounds.

Rescue teams respond when accidents happen. José Gallego, a former miner who now serves in Marmato's volunteer fire department, said, "In Marmato, accidents happen every day."

"When we aren't able to save a life, despite all our efforts, that breaks our soul," Gallego said.