Q COSTARICA — Costa Rican Security Minister Mario Zamora stated this Monday that illegal miners are extracting gold in the country to process and sell it in Nicaragua. He urged the neighboring country to increase surveillance along the border river San Juan, where a smuggling route exists.
“The theft of Costa Rican gold is carried out by small-scale miners who use smuggling routes that cross the San Juan River and reach the northern country (Nicaragua), where the mining sediment is processed, gold is extracted, and those profits remain,” Zamora said in a statement sent to the media.
The minister announced that he has asked Foreign Minister Arnoldo André to intercede with the Nicaraguan government to request increased police patrols on the San Juan River, which forms part of the border but is under Nicaraguan sovereignty.
“We are requesting that Nicaraguan authorities exercise their police authority on the San Juan River and its Nicaraguan bank to prevent the use of Nicaraguan territory for this gold smuggling route,” Zamora stated.
According to Zamora, the mining material is being extracted from the town of Las Crucitas, in the northern province of Alajuela, near the Nicaraguan border, with the involvement of transnational organized crime networks.
Costa Rican President Rodrigo Chaves announced that he will present this case as one of his country’s security problems at the meeting that U.S. President Donald Trump will hold with Latin American leaders on March 7 in Miami.
In 2010, an open-pit gold mine owned by the Canadian company Infinito Gold was slated to begin operations in Las Crucitas. However, after a lengthy legal battle, a Costa Rican court revoked the permits, preventing the company from starting construction. The site was subsequently taken over by illegal miners who employ environmentally damaging techniques, such as the use of mercury, resulting in severe environmental damage to the area.
The current administration of President Rodrigo Chaves is promoting a bill to reactivate gold mining in Las Crucitas under the management of a private company. The initiative is also supported by President-elect Laura Fernández, who will assume office on May 8th.
The bill, which faces opposition from environmentalists and a sector of the opposition, stipulates that the State will receive 5% of the profits from the business, which will operate under a concession model for extraction and operation of the “Las Crucitas Centralized Processing Plant,” without the use of mercury and without causing further environmental damage.
In addition, the Ministry of Environment and Energy will be in charge of conducting the competitions under the auction scheme to assign one or more concessionaires that comply with environmental terms.