Gunmen of the Gulf Clan, a drug-trafficking militia in Colombia, are seizing tunnels inside one of the largest gold motherlodes in Latin America. The mine belongs to Zijin Mining Group, a Chinese company, which says it has surrendered nearly two-thirds of its tunnels and lost an estimated $200 million worth of gold in 2023. WSJ's Juan Forero reports. This episode has been updated to include comment from the Gulf Clan. Further Reading: -A Drug Gang Stole 3 Tons of Gold in a Scam So Perfect It’s Still Going Further Listening: -Smuggling Migrants Toward the U.S. Is a Booming Business -Why Black Lung Is Rising in Coal Country Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Last summer, our colleague Juan Ferrero left his home base in Bogota, Colombia, to visit a small town in the Andes Mountains.
You know, you're on a highway and then you turn off and you're very soon on a very narrow road that is a winding road that starts to drop, you know, toward a valley. Beautiful scenery. You know, you see this tapestry of different shades of green where farmers are producing their crops. And down below, several miles down, is the town of Buritica.
Burritica sits nestled within the mountains. And in those mountains is a resource that people have been fighting over since the arrival of Spanish conquistadors. Shining, glimmering, valuable gold. Nowadays, it's not the Spanish who are looking for gold. Instead, it's a multinational giant out of China, the Zijin Mining Group. Zijin's mine in Buritica is the richest gold mine in Colombia.
When Juan visited, he found a mine under siege.
When we got deep into the mine, you know, there's a point where Zijin is just not in control anymore. And so what you see are sandbags everywhere. And behind those sandbags are guards. And they're outfitted, you know, with bulletproof vests and so forth. And they're toting shotguns.
On the other side of the sandbags is a rival group of miners who are invading Zijin's tunnels to steal the company's gold. In 2023, the miners stole tons of it, worth about $200 million, according to the company's estimates. And they're stealing it with the help of a powerful militia group, meaning the conflict often turns violent.
The way they put it is this is underground trench warfare. I mean, it is 600, 700 yards underground. I don't know of another place in the world where you have two sides that are going at it that far underground. And of course, they're fighting over gold.
Welcome to The Journal, our show about money, business, and power. I'm Jessica Mendoza. It's Thursday, January 2nd. Coming up on the show, the battle for gold raging within Colombia's mountains. The mine at the center of this conflict has been operated by the Zijin Mining Group since 2020.
Zijin Mining Group is a Chinese state-controlled company, and it operates all over the world. I mean, it has operations in the Congo. It has operations in Asia, of course, in China, and in many other countries. How important is Zijin Mining Group to China?
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