LA PAMPA, Peru — They sweat through 28-hour shifts in the malarial jungle of the Madre de Dios region of southeastern Peru, braving the perils of collapsing earth and limb-crushing machinery to come up with a few grams of gold. Most illegal miners hail from impoverished highlands communities and even here barely earn subsistence wages. They chew
Miners’ Hard Life Now Tinged With Fear
The government’s point man on eradicating illegal mining, Daniel Urresti, says the real criminals aren’t the miners, but an estimated 50 people they work for, who own the illegal machinery and buy the gold.