Abstract
This chapter details how the global gold mining boom touches ground in Colombia. Based on field research in different ASGM sites, it argues that the Colombian government, while targeting its regulatory reforms toward foreign direct investment in large-scale mining, has created more ambiguity around ASGM. At the same time, it has created what we call legal loopholes, which allow different actors in the gold trading chain to benefit from vacuums or ambiguities within the law. In this process, international distributors, intermediaries, and public servants benefit most as they manage to buy and sell large volumes of illegally mined gold, and legalize this.
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Robles Mengoa, M.E., Urán, A. (2020). Colombia: Legal Loopholes Behind Illegal Gold Trade. In: Verbrugge, B., Geenen, S. (eds) Global Gold Production Touching Ground. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-38486-9_8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-38486-9_8
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