(24 Jul 2025)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Callao, Peru – 16 July 2025
1. Various of customs workers taking a sample from the minerals to test its contents
2. SOUNDBITE (Spanish) Jorge Gallo Alvarado, National Customs Control Officer of the National Customs and Tax Administration Superintendency (SUNAT):
"After an analysis carried out by experts, it was determined that this crushed stone is impregnated with mercury, which is used for illegal mining."
3. Various of workers after analysing the mineral and confirming that it is mercury, making a report and sealing the bags
4. SOUNDBITE (Spanish) Jorge Gallo Alvarado, National Customs Control Intendant of the National Superintendency of Customs and Tax Administration (SUNAT):
"This is the largest shipment of mercury that has ever been seized in a Peruvian port. We have had seizures before, but not on the scale of this one, which is significant."
5. Various of workers after analysing the mineral and confirming that it is mercury
STORYLINE:
Peruvian customs officials have seized a record-breaking shipment of illegal mercury, exposing a cross-border smuggling network that is fueling one of the Amazon’s most destructive criminal economies: illicit gold mining.
The four-ton haul — the largest mercury seizure ever made in an Amazon country and one of the world’s largest — was discovered in June at the port of Callao, hidden inside gravel-filled bags on a cargo ship bound for Bolivia. Though labeled as crushed stone, the shipment was flagged by customs agents based on international intelligence sharing.
“This crushed stone was laced with mercury,” said Jorge Gallo Alvarado, head of customs enforcement at SUNAT, Peru’s tax and customs agency. “It’s a restricted substance because it’s used in illegal alluvial mining.”
The container, which originated in Mexico, was singled out for inspection by SUNAT’s risk analysis team. U.S. specialists later confirmed the presence of mercury embedded in the gravel — a tactic increasingly used to avoid detection at ports.
The seized goods are valued at roughly $500,000, SUNAT said.
Authorities say the bust marks a turning point in efforts to dismantle the supply chains behind the Amazon’s illicit gold trade. Mercury, a powerful neurotoxin banned or tightly restricted in many countries, remains essential to the process used by illegal miners across the rainforest to extract gold from river sediment.
In Peru’s Madre de Dios region, an epicenter of illegal mining, mercury contamination has been detected in drinking water, fish and even breast milk. Long-term exposure to methylmercury can cause irreversible damage to the brain and nervous system, particularly in children and pregnant women. Indigenous and riverine communities that rely on fish for food are especially vulnerable.
Traffickers often disguise mercury shipments with false paperwork and front companies, allowing them to slip through customs. Once across the border, the metal is sold to illegal mining camps — often in protected forests or Indigenous territories — where it becomes almost impossible to trace.
AP Video shot by Cesar Barreto
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