EL CALLAO, Venezuela (AP) — Venezuela sits atop the world’s largest oil reserves, but the collapse of the oil industry has turned gold into an important source of income. Since 2016, when former President Nicolás Maduro established the Orinoco Mining Arc, a mining development zone, gold mining in Bolívar state has expanded into an unregulated frontier.
There, armed groups and criminal networks — often operating with the complicity of state security forces — exert control over a sector the U.N. and advocacy groups link to systemic human rights abuses, labor violations and environmental devastation.
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A man pans for gold in a pond next to a mill where rock and sediment are crushed and processed to extract gold in El Callao, Venezuela, Tuesday, Jan. 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
A man pans for gold in a pond next to a mill where rock and sediment are crushed and processed to extract gold in El Callao, Venezuela, Tuesday, Jan. 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
Marcovich Gonzalez loads rocks and soil into a machine that crushes it at a mill that processes material from nearby pits to extract gold in El Callao, Venezuela, Tuesday, Jan. 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
Marcovich Gonzalez loads rocks and soil into a machine that crushes it at a mill that processes material from nearby pits to extract gold in El Callao, Venezuela, Tuesday, Jan. 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
A miner burns a gold-mercury amalgam to evaporate mercury and isolate gold at a gold mining site El Callao, Venezuela, Tuesday, Jan. 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
A miner burns a gold-mercury amalgam to evaporate mercury and isolate gold at a gold mining site El Callao, Venezuela, Tuesday, Jan. 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
A man sucks on a water hose to fill bottles with gasoline to sell in the gold mining region of El Callao, Venezuela, Tuesday, Jan. 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
A man sucks on a water hose to fill bottles with gasoline to sell in the gold mining region of El Callao, Venezuela, Tuesday, Jan. 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
A worker operates machinery to crush rock at a mill in the gold mining area of El Callao, Venezuela, Thursday, Jan. 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
A worker operates machinery to crush rock at a mill in the gold mining area of El Callao, Venezuela, Thursday, Jan. 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
