Colombia’s Gold Cartels

Colombia has become synonymous with one major illegal export – cocaine , but now there’s another equally lucrative product that’s funding the powerful and deadly organised crime groups that control much of rural Colombia – gold.

The increase in global demand for natural resources and the related rise in gold prices have fuelled illegal mining in Colombia, resulting in significant security concerns, human rights abuses and environmental degradation. Ashley heads deep into the Colombian jungle to find out why gold is now twice as valuable than cocaine to the country’s organised crime groups, meeting the young men drawn into this illegal venture, discovering the shocking health impact mining is having on them, as well as meeting the cartel gangsters who control almost every element of life in these remote regions.