The Philip DeFranco Show - MS 5.17 Modern Day Gold Rush?! What You Need To Know About This Illegal Mining Town

Starting point is 00:00:00 Hello, hello, welcome to your extra Friday slash weekend news video. My name, of course, is Philip DeFranco, and today we're going to be talking about a city that you have most likely never heard of. A city with no roads, no plumbing, no sewage system, no laws. Their Pokemon Go spawn rates are probably horrible, but it does have people and gold. Specifically, lots and lots of gold. The town is called La Renconada, and it is the highest permanent human settlement in the world, sitting at almost three miles above sea level in the Andes Mountains of Peru. And those mountains have made Peru

Starting point is 00:00:26 the biggest producer of gold in Latin America, $2.5 billion of which is estimated to be mined illegally each year. Which brings us back to La Rinconada, which is actually just a small part of the illegal gold trade. In the 90s, the city was just a small mining camp with only a few hundred gold miners.

Starting point is 00:00:40 But since then, tens of thousands of workers have moved there, hoping to secure work and stake their claim to gold turning it from this kind of small mining camp into an illegal town. And while the Peruvian government has introduced legislation to shut down illegal mines the population in this city is still growing and the city's economy is almost entirely fueled by gold mines. And with this surge of people it has caused the city to become overcrowded, dirty, chaotic and with living conditions unlike any other. Talking about those living conditions, average temperatures there are just four degrees Celsius. Your neighborhoods are more like shanty towns

Starting point is 00:01:19 with houses made of tin sheets and no insulation. There's also no running water or pavement. There's also no sewage system, so there is waste everywhere. And because of the lack of sanitation, tuberculosis is a common concern, as are urinary tract infections. And on top of all of that, the ground, air, water, and snow in this city are all contaminated with mercury

Starting point is 00:01:36 because of how the gold is extracted. The mining that takes place there is artisanal and done by hand. And the actual process of extracting gold involves using mercury to bind the gold and remove it from the rock. And why this process matters extracting gold involves using mercury to bind the gold and remove it from the rock. And why this process matters is that in order to then get pure gold,

Starting point is 00:01:48 you then have to burn the mercury away by either heating it or using certain acids, and the fumes from this process are awful for your health. Which if you're like, well, Phil, what about the health and safety regulations? Because all the stuff you said before makes me feel like they have them for some reason. Well, the health and safety regulations that are there

Starting point is 00:02:03 that surround the extraction of gold put out by the Peruvian government are largely ignored. So because of that, many people there have respiratory problems. Also, let's talk about work and money. The majority of the population in that region already lives below the poverty line. And that, of course, is a major reason why you have these people willing to risk their lives by working in toxic conditions. Conditions that on a typical workday, they are in from 6 a.m. to 5 p.m. And as far as who's behind this operation, the vast majority of the mines in this region

Starting point is 00:02:26 are run by a mineral mining company called Corporacion Ananias. And, shocker, they fail in some basic ways when it comes to running a remote mine. For example, most mining companies will handle some basic infrastructure for the towns that their workers live in, but, as you can tell, this company does not do that.

Starting point is 00:02:40 They also blatantly ignore those mining and health regulations that we talked about set forth by the government. They also, and this brings us back to the money, they don't really pay their workers. Miners operate under something called the Cachorreo system. Under this system, they mine for 30 consecutive days with no pay. Then, on the 31st day, they can take as much ore as they can carry to get processed, and any gold they find from that, they get to keep. The big catch, though, is there is no guarantee that there is any gold in those rocks.

Starting point is 00:03:03 So it kind of feels like like if my employees worked for me for free, but then at the end of the month, I was like, hey, guess what? Here are a bunch of scratch off tickets. Congratulations, you're welcome. But of course you have people that do this because once again, you have a population that has horrible options or no option at all.

Starting point is 00:03:15 And so all of a sudden you have this promise of potentially striking it rich. So it keeps people trying and it throws people into this horrible system. And so because of all this, how horrible it all is, some international organizations have even gone as far to describe the situation as modern day slavery, which also kind of brings us to some of the other horrible.

Starting point is 00:03:32 But as you may have noticed from the images that we've shown, there are only men in the mines. So what do the women do? Well, throughout the community, there is this old belief that if women work in the mines, the gold will disappear. And because women aren't allowed to mine in La Rinconada, they have to scavenge for leftover gold by looking through mountains of rocks and rubble

Starting point is 00:03:56 that are left outside of the mine. These women are known as payaqueras and they play a vital role in the economy. So much so, in fact, that in 2018, for the first time ever, the Peruvian government acknowledged the Payacarás in an official decree, expanding the definition of traditional artisanal small-scale mining practices to include these women, which was massive

Starting point is 00:04:13 because before this, those women weren't recognized by the state as members of the mining industry. And what that meant is that it prevented them from participating in formal business transactions, which only left them the option of selling on the black market. But now these women can sell gold to refiners and gold processing plants, potentially make significantly more market. But now these women can sell gold to refiners and gold processing plants potentially

Starting point is 00:04:25 make significantly more money. But still, despite those gains, the lack of government oversight and proper law enforcement leaves the women susceptible to abuse and even sexual assault. In La Rinconada, things like violence, alcoholism, illegal prostitution, and human trafficking largely go unpunished.

Starting point is 00:04:39 Police even estimate that more than 4,500 girls are trafficked for sexual exploitation to work in the bars frequented by minors there. And women in La Rinconada who get pregnant still need to work, and so they're forced to bring their kids with them, which, by the way, often leads to child labor. Small boys are forced to work

Starting point is 00:04:53 in the underground mining galleries because of their small stature. You know, they can fit into areas where adults can't. You have small girls that are lured into working in brothels, adding to the cycle of sex work that we mentioned earlier. And of course, making it harder for them to even break out of this abuse, this exploitation.

Starting point is 00:05:07 They're not going to school. Instead, they're going straight to a mining site every morning, working while dynamite's going off underground tens of feet away. It of course limits their chances for their life to get better in any way. It's not that bad. It's not that bad. It's not that bad. It's not that bad. It's not that bad. It's not that bad. It's not that bad. It's not that bad. It's not that bad. It's not that bad.

Starting point is 00:05:28 It's not that bad. It's not that bad. It's not that bad. It's not that bad. It's not that bad. It's not that bad. It's not that bad. It's not that bad.

Starting point is 00:05:35 It's not that bad. It's not that bad. It's not that bad. It's not that bad. It's not that bad. It's not that bad. It's not that bad. It's not that bad.

Starting point is 00:05:41 It's not that bad. It's not that bad. It's not that bad. It's not that bad. It's not that bad. It's not that bad. It's not that bad. It's not it that. It's a city commonly referred to as the white hell or the land of nobody. And so that's why you have people who have experienced the city calling on the Peruvian government to intervene and do things like clean up the land,

Starting point is 00:05:50 police the streets, ensure at least minimum wages for labor, set up medical clinics, and liberate the women from sexual slavery. Also like we talked about to give people hope, pushing for schools built to help the kids there get away from the mines, get off the streets. But also, and this is a really big thing here of why it might not change.

Starting point is 00:06:06 Because of the hope of striking it rich. Again, that big jackpot from the scratch off. Any effort made by the Peruvian government to bring regulation and order to the city has been met with contention. With residents there often pushing back because they fear taxation, regulation, and pretty much any form of government oversight.

Starting point is 00:06:20 And so that's why, as of right now, La Rinconada's future remains uncertain. Will we see the government swoop in? Will corruption and crime continue to run rampant on the streets? And of course,, as of right now, La Rinconada's future remains uncertain. Will we see the government swoop in? Will corruption and crime continue to run rampant on the streets? And of course, with all of that said, it brings us to the part of the video where I pass the question off to you.

Starting point is 00:06:31 What are your thoughts on this? Do you think that the city should be regulated despite pushback from residents, given how horrible everything else is? Or no, do you think that's not fair to the people who don't mind working under those conditions? And really, just any thoughts at all, I'd love to hear from you in those comments down below.

Starting point is 00:06:43 But with all of that said, thank you so much for watching this extra deep dive. Remember this week we're doing something different, Monday through Thursday, you're getting that Philip DeFranco show, then Friday, Saturday, Sunday, we have these extra deep dives. And so what that means for you is if there's any day

Starting point is 00:06:54 and you're like, I haven't watched Phil today, I wonder if he has a new video, the answer is yes, there 100% is. But on that note, thank you for watching. If you like this video, you wanna support the channel, take a second, hit that like button, maybe even share this interesting story. Also for those who are new here, if you wanna make sure you don't miss our new channel, take a second, hit that like button, maybe even share this interesting story. Also for those who are new here,

Starting point is 00:07:06 if you want to make sure you don't miss our new daily videos, be sure to hit that subscribe button. I'd even recommend clicking that bell to get notifications. Also, if you're not 100% filled in, maybe you missed one of the last two videos we put out. You can click or tap right there to catch up and watch those. But with that said, of course, as always,

Starting point is 00:07:19 my name's Philip DeFranco. You've just been filled in. I love yo faces and I'll see you tomorrow.

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The Philip DeFranco Show - MS 5.17 Modern Day Gold Rush?! What You Need To Know About This Illegal Mining Town

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