With the reorganization of the U.S. naval forces in the Caribbean seen as a direct threat to Nicolás Maduro’s regime, under what is officially proclaimed as a major anti-drug operation, many suspect it is cloaked in a regime change maneuver. Some believe this is fundamentally a geopolitical struggle for Washington to secure preferential, if not exclusive, access to Venezuela’s underground resources.
Just three weeks ago, U.S. President Donald J. Trump revealed that Maduro offered multiple concessions to facilitate military de-escalation and reopen dialogue with Washington. “He has offered me everything,” Trump stated on October 17 during a press conference, without providing details. However, a story from the New York Times had previously revealed what “everything” entails: the Venezuelan leader allegedly proposed opening access for U.S. companies to the national oil market and other natural resources. Notably, this offer has also been hinted at by opposition leader María Corina Machado who, at international forums, presented Venezuela as a potential energy hub, representing a major strategic investment opportunity in the hemisphere once Maduro is out of power.
However, it’s not just oil that’s at stake. Another valuable trophy that could await the winner in this game that the United States plays, with China as the shadow rival, is the so-called black sands, a conglomerate of heavy minerals of high economic and strategic value, essential for manufacturing modern technologies, which may include not only coltan but also tantalum, niobium, tin, tungsten, and even rare earth elements. The black sand deposits in southern Venezuela have been obscured and chaotically exploited by all sorts of actors, from state entities to criminal or subversive groups like the Colombian guerrilla.
While there are records of black sand exports from national ports in La Guaira and Zulia states, a current investigation conducted by Amazon Underworld, which involved Armando.info, confirmed that much of the black sand extracted from Guiana is also traded illegally under the control of criminal groups and guerrillas stationed in Bolívar and Amazonas states towards Colombia, where its origin is practically “laundered” and most often ends up in the hands of Chinese companies.
The papers say it’s from here, but it’s actually from there
Brigadier General Rafael Olaya, Commander of the Colombian Naval Force of Orinoquia, has battled drug traffickers on the southeastern Pacific coast of Colombia and has sat at the verification table for the peace agenda between President Gustavo Petro and the National Liberation Army (ELN), the largest guerrilla group in the country. But now he faces an under-the-radar challenge: regulating the extraction and commercialization of critical minerals, an activity that has the potential to become a flashpoint for conflict on the Colombian-Venezuelan border.
From his office filled with military paraphernalia in Puerto Carreño, a border city with Venezuela and capital of the Colombian department of Vichada, the serious and experienced naval officer reluctantly admits that his forces have seized the largest amount of black sand in Colombia’s history: 60 tons, out of a national total of 80 tons, in just a few months. Heavy bags of minerals containing tin, tantalum, and rare earth elements traverse the regions of Orinoquia and the Amazon of the Guiana Shield.
“From the Ministry of Mines and the National Mining Agency, we should pay a little more attention to this region because, it’s not just the Colombian State, it’s that at this moment the issue of rare earths is influencing international conflicts, it’s impacting international trade, we’re talking about the largest trader, which is China,” he emphasizes.
The seizures reveal a concerning paradox. Multiple police and intelligence sources, as well as others involved in illegal extraction and transportation, confirmed that the majority of these minerals come from illegal mining sites controlled by guerrillas in Venezuelan territory. Nonetheless, after the seizure, they are often returned to those transporting them. Why? The trafficking schemes are ingeniously designed to appear compliant with current legislation.
“Unfortunately, this legal weakness is what prevents us from reaching a point of judicializing the material,” explains General Olaya, who references the quality of the seized concentrates to illustrate the sophistication of mineral trafficking: “We are seeing that it’s an appraisal where the material is of such a high level that it can only be achieved through industrialized, specialized exploitation, which is what gives that material its level of purity.”
However, despite frequent overflights and patrols both from quick-action boats called “piranhas” and amphibious vehicles, the Colombian Navy can’t pinpoint within its territory the mines from which the material is truly obtained. “If you were to fly over the territory under my responsibility, you wouldn’t see those holes, those environmental damages that are presenting themselves, that industrial scale that implies the quality of the material being extracted, and it’s very complicated to determine if they are really doing it directly from riverbeds or if there could be a situation where they are transporting material from another country into Colombia,” he insinuates.
The answer lies in document manipulation. To avoid legal scrutiny, minerals of illegal origin are paired with documentation of legitimate Colombian mining titles, often incomplete or fraudulent. “These titles also serve to legalize minerals coming from other regions, making it appear as if it’s exploitation under a title where no such thing is happening. All they need to do is place those large amounts of material and formalize it,” Olaya explains.
The scheme often exploits small-scale mining permits within indigenous reserves, where the Colombian State—including Olaya’s troops—faces access restrictions and cannot monitor whether real exploitation is indeed occurring.
Indigenous miners consulted by Amazon Underworld indicate, not without first requesting anonymity, that military operational details leak in advance to the criminal networks controlling mining equipment: “And before that happens, in Inírida [the capital of Guainía, another department of Colombian Orinoquia], they warn about five days in advance: The government is going there, and you know, you get a chance to hide, how to say, the mining rafts, all the materials used there. The mines, the drums, hide the fuel, everything,” one of them assures.
Hiding the equipment requires a massive effort: “When I was there, I had to hide the raft four times. We had to open a path, we dug a big trench, about 500 meters, we collected days before the government came and pretended to be planting plants, because they were just put there, nothing more.”
Between document manipulation and navigating scrutiny, a perfect legal void is created that allows tons of Venezuelan minerals to flow into Colombia.
The rafts float, the truths sink
In Amanavén, a riverside town in Vichada opposite the Venezuelan locality of San Fernando de Atabapo, state of Amazonas— a main departure point to the mines of Yapacana National Park— less than a dozen vessels are docked. They house shops with names like La Cuñada, La Cariñosa, or Las Toninas, selling basic supplies and food products. However, according to the Colombian Navy, these floating homes are part of the crucial infrastructure for storing black sand.
This is one of the critical points for minerals collection, surrounded by circumstances that emphasize the informality of the business. “In some places we’ve found this type of sand, there have been various seizures and verifications when they don’t have documentation, and it’s placed at the disposal of the competent authorities,” says Colonel Higuera, a young Colombian naval officer.
“It’s very likely that here, at this moment, there are members of armed groups,” he adds. In December 2024, the Navy raided one of those boats and seized 13 tons of black sand concentrate, belonging to a mineral marketing company called Gracor. Later, in April of this year, the municipal judge of Cumaribo, Vichada, Ximena Ramírez Zambrano, ordered the return of the seized minerals to Gracor, citing irregularities in the process despite objections from the Prosecutor’s Office and arguments from the Navy.
Amazon Underworld visited Amanavén in May 2025 alongside a team from the Colombian Navy, amidst a tense environment where locals began filming and questioning reporters’ presence. Colonel Higuera approached three nervous Venezuelan men dressed in black at the town’s restaurant to shake their hands. “These collaborate with the ELN. Those three subjects over there,” Higuera later stated about the individuals, citing data collected by naval intelligence but arguing that he could not act due to the lack of arrest warrants.
There is a strange mix of nearby Venezuelan state forces, mineral merchants, and Colombian guerrillas in Amanavén – a town located in the full Star River of the Amazon, where the Atabapo, Guaviare, and Orinoco rivers converge, just a stone’s throw from San Fernando— exemplifying the inability to act against this illicit economy while the legal framework lags behind and the legal and technical tools to identify critical minerals and rare earths remain insufficient.
Brigadier General Olaya estimates that around 80 tons of black sand transit monthly through the Colombian departments of Guainía and Vichada, though his estimate likely only represents the lower end of actual volumes. “They are extracting rare earths left and right,” he asserted.
The movement from Venezuelan extraction sites to Colombian territory relies on a network of intermediaries and strategically located collection points along the border. Indigenous buyers and other collectors serve as links between miners and Colombian companies or buyers, facilitating the frequent transborder movement of minerals.
These collection points are deliberately positioned to exploit the porous nature of the border. When Venezuelan military authorities threaten trafficking activities, operators can quickly move the minerals across the river to Colombia, and vice versa. Some operators prefer to hide minerals on the Colombian banks of the river to prevent theft by units of the Bolivarian National Guard (GNB) of Venezuela, whose involvement in illegal exploitation and commercialization, from resale for personal gain to associations with armed groups, is well-documented.
Opposite Amanavén, already on Venezuelan territory, several GNB-equipped boats remain docked. In February 2025, members of this military body attempted to kidnap personnel from Gracor, the aforementioned Colombian mineral trading company, whose staff jumped into the water to avoid capture. However, they could not prevent the Venezuelan uniformed individuals from stealing over 400 kilograms of black sand.
At collection centers within Colombian territory, such as Amanavén, Puerto Inírida, and Carlos Lata, the minerals undergo basic processing and quality evaluation. Amazon Underworld accessed a video showing buyers transferring minerals from bags to buckets for precise weighing, a process designed to prevent fraud by mixing valuable minerals with lower-quality dark sands. The bags are systematically marked with colored tape to identify ownership, and sometimes spectrometers, devices for verifying material quality, are employed.
Armed actors control critical transit points along smuggling routes, charging bribes in places like Isla Ratón on the Venezuelan side of the Orinoco River and Carlos Lata, where the National Liberation Army (ELN) operates, an irregular armed group originated in Colombia but which has strengthened on the other side of the border. These extortion schemes demonstrate how armed groups monetize their territorial control.
On the opposite riverbank
Most extraction occurs in two states of Venezuelan Guiana: Amazonas, where mining is prohibited by decree, and Bolívar, where the mining area declared by the government in 2016, called the Orinoco Mining Arc, stretches.
In the case of Bolívar state, although it is challenging to pinpoint, there is a consensus that rudimentary extraction began about 15 years ago in Cedeño municipality, near a place called Morichalito, in the Parguaza area.
Indigenous miners have been extracting coltan there since the early 2010s, secretly taking the stones to buyers on the other side of the border. “We used to pass a lot of coltan to [Puerto] Carreño, well hidden because, otherwise, they would take it from us,” says a miner named Josué, a fictitious name to protect his identity.
In the interview, he describes how they carried bags of stones to El Burro, a small town and key connection point between Bolívar and Apure states on the Orinoco River, before transporting them at night across the river to Colombia, to an informal settlement on the outskirts of Puerto Carreño, called La Rampla.
Starting in 2010, when the global rush for critical minerals accelerated, buyers began to appear and local miners were displaced from their extraction sites. Carlos and Josué recount that hundreds of armed fighters from the ELN began to seize the most productive mining sites in 2023, bringing more workers to the region.
When the guerrillas took control, local leaders were co-opted, threatened, and bought by irregular forces. Those unwilling to work under the guerrilla regime could only continue operations secretly, at night and in hidden mining spots.
In Amazonas and the northwest of Bolívar state, where most of the critical mineral mines are located, the José Daniel Pérez Carrero Front of the ELN and the dissident group of former FARC, the Acacio Medina Front of Second Marquetalia, both included in the list of terrorist organizations by the United States, operated in an alliance that divided the territory and mines between them while sharing drug trafficking routes.
A meeting to discuss this non-aggression pact, renegotiated in early 2025, included several entrepreneurs who trade critical minerals. The agreement aimed to continue trade without inconvenient interruptions in the shared business. However, this convenience alliance met a brutal end in August 2025, when ELN members ambushed and killed several leaders of the Acacio Medina Front of the FARC dissidents in an attempt to take full control of the borderlands rich in resources.
Since 2023, guerrilla-controlled mines have rapidly expanded as external miners have been brought into the area. Local miners say they pay a portion of the mineral (stones containing coltan and tin, usually around a kilogram) to access the mines. Deep in the jungle, sometimes three to seven days of walking away, indigenous miners find themselves working the rocks while guerrilla forces watch and “Chinese” buyers arrive by helicopter, according to various testimonials gathered by Amazon Underworld.
Significant destruction of jungle and rapid deforestation accompany large-scale operations, alarming local miners. “They have cleared everything, they have destroyed the streams, they built an airport; it’s horrible,” describes one miner, the eldest among those reporters were able to talk to.
“In two or three years, all of that Parguaza River will be contaminated because many machines are entering, high-caliber machines. This isn’t what I want. We are damaging the environment. Working the land, on the rafts [mining], one damages the environment, pollutes the water, the air. There are many chemicals used for working there. This isn’t what I want, one doesn’t know what could happen in the future,” reflects another worker, who speaks slowly and softly, almost in whispers, despite knowing he’s in Colombian territory and therefore presumably safe.
In Amazonas, the southwestern state neighboring Bolívar, the extraction of critical minerals also takes place on indigenous lands. In the territory of the Piaroa ethnicity in Manapiare, Autana, and the municipality of Atabapo, river rafts also extracting gold search for and remove critical minerals.
Credit: Natalie Barusso / Laura Alsina (Amazon Underworld)
Mineral Retail
There is neither governmental transparency nor open data regarding the production, transportation, and marketing of coltan and cassiterite. Sources consulted in the northwest of Bolívar state report that the material is sold at the mine for nine dollars per kilo, or in towns like Morichalito and Los Pijiguaos, for 14 dollars per kilo. They agree that Chinese and Brazilian buyers participate in purchasing the material. “In Mina Nueva there’s a buyer who buys at 9 or 10 dollars; he is Brazilian from the same mine as La 40.”
“Bringing the mineral is forced because it’s a three-day walk to where the motorcycle gets to. And they pay very little, 14 dollars per kilo,” notes an indigenous chief, who requested to keep his name confidential.
The leader explains that the mineral is sold directly in the mines or at collection centers in Los Pijiguaos— a site previously known for industrial bauxite exploitation— and the neighboring village of Morichalito, very close to the ancestral enclave of the mapoyo, traditional collectors of sarrapia and, according to legend, guardians of a sword that Liberator Simón Bolívar handed to them two centuries ago. “There are few miners who come with the material. They sell it to the alliances of the Venezuelan Mining Corporation [CVM] in the area. There are Chinese with a collection center in Los Pijiguaos with CVM’s permission. The Brazilians are at the mine itself.”
Previously, marketing was focused in Morichalito and Los Pijiguaos, “then Brazilian cooperatives came and went there, set up camp, and bought the stones right there.”
But in Morichalito, the locals are still active at 10 collection centers identified with the CVM logo, two of which have records of exports to China and the United States.
A mineral marketer from the northwest of Bolívar state explained that it is very difficult to identify what material is extracted from the mines. “What we market the most is tin-cassiterite. In four years that I’ve been here, I haven’t seen five tons of coltan together. Coltan is bought between 18 and 20 dollars per kilo, but the surface coltan has already been worked. What remains is the deeper stuff, but here there is mainly artisanal mining. Access is very difficult. The mines are three days walking.”
“This extraction was all sold to Colombia; there’s an area called Los Gallitos from where coltan came out. They discarded the tin because no one wanted to buy it. It cost half a dollar. Now most of the alliances have problems because they don’t have money to buy. The whole business is handled in cash, blue band dollars and pesos, and you need a container of 26 tons; it’s quite an investment,” he finishes.
According to the indigenous chief or captain who requested anonymity, a company called Oro Azul would be the only one that, under the figure of a mixed company, complied with the due process of consulting with indigenous peoples. “They will probably exploit this year. They are the only company that adhered to the Official Gazette [a publication where laws and other regulations promulgated by the Venezuelan State are published]. It’s about half an hour from Morichalito, in mapoyo territory.”
“The alliances take the material and process it. Each collection center has a means of transportation; they transfer it in large trucks. None of these alliances has made any social contribution to the community. The way in which this material is being extracted, it would be good if the community could see the benefits. What we see is the disaster that is left at that mine, the pollution, the river is getting polluted and people don’t say anything,” the chief laments, noting that the Parguaza River is starting to show signs of contamination and “people can no longer bathe or drink water like before. They who are the owners don’t say anything, but they are affecting us in the territory. We’ve spoken with the Army and the National Guard four months ago and nothing has happened.”
An Illicit and Violent Economy
Armed Colombian fighters, Brazilian buyers, “Chinese,” and complicit state forces act together to exploit minerals, without caring that they may be invading indigenous territories. The story repeats: valuable raw materials from ancestral lands, like rubber before, or gold more recently, are being extracted through grave and systematic violations of human rights and illegal trade networks.
“I was 13 when I started working in this,” says a source, referring to the extraction of critical minerals. “There are many rules to follow, and if you don’t comply, they kill you,” she assures. Both in Amazonas and Bolívar, armed groups control mining areas with an iron fist. A 2020 report by the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights documented that in mining regions of Venezuela, forced child labor is implemented, mass killings, forced disappearances, and sexual violence occur.
The guerrilla groups also control sexual labor in mining areas. “The guerrilla are the ones who sell women for gold,” explained a source, describing how armed groups profit from exploiting women.
Miners and community members assert that armed groups control access routes, intimidate people, impose demands on locals, such as not bringing cell phones to the mines or showing their phones for inspections.
They also describe torture, corporal punishment, and summary executions. Those who repeatedly steal face brutal punishments. “They caught a kid who had stolen three times; they gave him three chances and he didn’t take advantage. A guerrilla woman came, knelt him down. I arrived just then; I saw him kneeling with his hands behind his back. She shot him twice in the head,” recounts a source from that territory. He assures that the executioner was a member of the ELN.
Another miner referred to the existence of improvised jails in the jungle where prisoners can go days without food. “They have a jail there with barbed wire. They don’t have food or water because they’re being punished, but we can’t do anything or they put us in there too,” he admits.
Armed groups also recruit new members from local communities, including minors. In Amazonas, a miner recounted how he was summoned by the guerrilla. “When I got there, there were many guerrillas; there were more than the indigenous population and they were the ones in charge there,” he recalls. When asked to join, local indigenous chief intervened to buy time. “I had to leave urgently without anyone noticing.” In areas controlled by FARC dissidents, recruitment became so widespread that in 2022, a whole community of the Warekena tribe left to prevent their youth from being taken.
The situation replicates a global pattern that is expanding. “An imminent threat grows ever more pressing: the race for critical minerals for global energy transition, much of which is found in or near Indigenous Peoples’ territories,” said António Guterres, UN Secretary-General, earlier this year. “As demand increases, we witness dispossession, exclusion, and marginalization in decision-making processes, in addition to the rights of these peoples being trampled and their health endangered, all while being denied the benefits they deserve.”
While more than eight million Venezuelans have fled the country due to the profound humanitarian, political, and economic crisis, those who remain struggle to survive. Public sector salaries amount to just a few dozen U.S. dollars per month, and working in the mines can significantly boost a person’s income. In this way, poverty becomes the muscle of the illegal mining industry, driving desperate Venezuelans towards dangerous extraction jobs in remote jungle areas controlled by armed groups.
“Well, the minimum wage is three dollars. And the bonus they give is 100 dollars,” explains an indigenous teacher. “In a day, if I manage to extract eight kilos [of stones containing critical minerals], I exceed that value and manage to sustain myself. Food stops being a problem because there’s plenty of stone, of course, when one can find it. But I don’t feel humiliated doing this, as I do feel in Puerto Ayacucho,” he says, referring to the capital of Amazonas state, on the banks of the Orinoco River.
“What am I going to do earning in a month what I can earn in a day! With this, we can sustain ourselves for several days. I stay for at least two weeks and then come back here to visit my family. My dad is a teacher and he can’t afford to eat; he eats only three days with the salary he has. Just him, without children, and we are six,” says another miner.
However, most local and indigenous miners are not aware of the true value of what they extract and sell. They receive between 10 and 25 dollars per kilogram, in transactions where buyers pay negligible prices for what is actually a high-value commodity.
Armed groups generate income from various forms of illegal mining. Mining operations are “taxed,” meaning that a portion of the production is delivered as tribute to non-state armed groups; this occurs when armed groups don’t directly control the deposit, thus enjoying the profits from the mines. Sometimes they also negotiate on behalf of other buyers who require the mineral.
But the dispossession doesn’t stop there. The Bolivarian National Armed Force (FANB) as a whole, along with the Bolivarian National Guard (GNB)— part of that force— rather than guaranteeing the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the State, maintaining internal order, protecting borders, or providing citizen and environmental security against the presence of these armed foreign groups, oversee access to the mines and collect bribes, multiple sources report. This occurs at checkpoints along local transit roads or near the mines. “At the entrance to the mines, there are checkpoints. Nobody comes out except them, who are in agreement with what is happening in Venezuela,” says a miner from the region.