Illegal Gold Mining in Venezuela

Miners prepare to walk to a gold mine after getting off a bus in El Callao, Venezuela, on May 13, 2019. The group is from northern Venezuela but like many had come to try and make some money in the dangerous and crime-infested gold mining towns in Bolívar state in the southeast of the country. © 2019 Michael Robinson Chavez/Getty Images

A worker mixes water with gold and mercury on an aluminum sheet for amalgamation, at a gold mine in El Callao, Bolívar state, southeastern Venezuela, on February 25, 2017. © 2017 JUAN BARRETO/AFP via Getty Images

Photos of victims of the Tumeremo massacre, killed in March 2016, on a sign carried by family members during a protest that closed a road connecting Brazil with Venezuela for nearly a week. © 2017 Lorena Melendez

Gold in a pan at "Cuatro Muertos" mine in Las Claritas, Venezuela. Thousands of Venezuelans have been flocking to illegal gold mines like this one in hopes of surviving the current economic crisis by earning in gold instead of the national currency, the value of which has fallen steadily due to one of the world's highest inflation rates. July 20, 2016. © 2016 Meridith Kohut

A cardboard sign that says in Spanish "No medicine until further notice," hung at the entrance to a small field clinic where malaria specialists test and treat patients for malaria near an illegal gold mine in Las Claritas, Venezuela, on May 26, 2016. © 2016 Meridith Kohut

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