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Book Review: Dirty Gold

By Pía Fuentealba

A team of reporters unveils a real-life tale of greed, glamour, and a trail of destruction.

For the Incas, gold was sacred. It had no material value, but represented the blood of their sun god, Viracocha. The Inca empire disappeared centuries ago, and gold has become the epitome of material wealth, attracting illicit players that leave behind a trail of violence and pollution. As we learn in Dirty Gold, smuggling of the precious metal has been an open secret in Latin America, with illegal shipments leaving the region and  traded by foreign companies ‑ at the expense of local communities and the environment. Dirty Gold: The Rise and Fall of an International Smuggling Ring...

Read this article on the Americas Quarterly website. | Subscribe to AQ.

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