Illegal Mining

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xxxvii

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2. Introduction

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 1-1

      PDF

   2. The New Eldorado: Organized Crime, Informal Mining, and the Global Scarcity of Metals and Minerals

      • Yuliya Zabyelina, Daan van Uhm

      Pages 3-30

   3. Why Organized Crime Seeks New Criminal Markets

      • Jay S. Albanese

      Pages 31-42

   4. The Queer Ladder of Social Mobility: Illegal Enterprise in the Anthracite Mining Region of Pennsylvania in the Interwar Decades (1917–1945)

      • Robert Schmidt

      Pages 43-74

3. Organized Crime in the Mining Sector

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 75-75

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   2. Links Between Artisanal and Small-Scale Gold Mining and Organized Crime in Latin America and Africa

      • Livia Wagner, Marcena Hunter

      Pages 77-104

   3. The Diversification of Organized Crime into Gold Mining: Domination, Crime Convergence, and Ecocide in Darién, Colombia

      • Daan van Uhm

      Pages 105-146

   4. Where the Metal Meets the Flesh: Organized Crime, Violence, and the Illicit Iron Ore Economy in Mexico’s Michoacán State

      • Fausto Carbajal Glass

      Pages 147-183

   5. Diamond Mining, Organized Crime, and Corruption

      • Dina Siegel

      Pages 185-203

   6. Warlords and Their Black Holes: The Plunder of Mining Regions in Afghanistan and the Central African Republic by Organized Crime

      • Kimberley L. Thachuk

      Pages 205-237

4. Organized Crime and Informal Mining

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 239-239

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   2. Shadowy Deals with “Sunny Stone”: Organized Crime, Informal Mining, and the Illicit Trade of Amber in Ukraine

      • Yuliya Zabyelina, Nicole Kalczynski

      Pages 241-272

   3. Between Informality and Organized Crime: Criminalization of Small-Scale Mining in the Peruvian Rainforest

      • Eva Bernet Kempers

      Pages 273-298

   4. When Gold Speaks, Every Tongue Is Silent: The Thin Line Between Legal, Illegal, and Informal in Peru’s Gold Supply Chain

      • Naomi van der Valk, Lieselot Bisschop, René van Swaaningen

      Pages 299-327

   5. Migrant Workers, Artisanal Gold Mining, and “More-Than-Human” Sousveillance in South Africa’s Closed Gold Mines

      • Matthew Nesvet

      Pages 329-357

   6. Digging into the Mining Subculture: The Dynamics of Trafficking in Persons in the Artisanal and Small-Scale Gold Mining of Peru’s Madre de Dios

      • Dolores Cortés-McPherson

      Pages 359-386

5. Mining, Corruption, and Money Laundering

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 387-387

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   2. Crude Oil’s Ugly Sister: The Political-Criminal Nexus and Corruption Inside Nigeria’s Solid Minerals and Mining Sector

      • Sheelagh Brady

      Pages 389-411

   3. Min(d)ing Corruption in International Investment Arbitration

      • Vasilka Sancin, Domen Turšič

      Pages 413-438

This book provides a comprehensive analysis of the illegal extraction of metals and minerals from the perspectives of organized crime theory, green criminology, anti-corruption studies, and victimology. It includes contributions that focus on organized crime-related offences, such as drug trafficking and trafficking in persons, extortion, corruption and money laundering and sheds light on the serious environmental harms caused by illegal mining. Based on a wide range of case studies from the Amazon rainforest through the Ukrainian flatlands to the desert-like savanna of Central African Republic and Australia’s elevated plateaus, this book offers a unique insight into the illegal mining business and the complex relationship between organized crime, corruption, and ecocide. This is the first book-length publication on illegal extraction, trafficking in mined commodities, and ecocide associated with mining. It will appeal to scholars working on organized crime and green crime, including criminologists, sociologists, anthropologists, and legal scholars. Practitioners and the general public may welcome this comprehensive and timely publication to contemplate on resource-scarcity, security, and crime in a rapidly changing world. 

• political sociology
• ecojustice
• environmental law
• green criminology
• natural resources
• human rights
• corporate crime
• coal
• gold mining
• warlords
• terrorism
• forced labour
• bribery
• money laundering
• ecocide

“In Illegal Mining the editors thoughtfully constellate a variety of scholarship together to produce this timely and important book … . this thought-provoking book is fundamental for empowering future decision-makers to do a better job than we and those before us were able to do … . Illegal Mining, and the research and scholarship therein, is a must-read book promoting a ‘gold’ standard for how academia should consider the twin, braided perils of OCGs and illegal mining.” (James Gacek, International Criminology, Vol. 1, 2021)

• Department of Political Science, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York (CUNY), New York, USA

  Yuliya Zabyelina

• Willem Pompe Institute for Criminal Law and Criminology, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands

  Daan van Uhm

Yuliya Zabyelina is Assistant Professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York, USA.

Daan van Uhm is Assistant Professor in Criminology at the Willem Pompe Institute for Criminal Law and Criminology, the Netherlands. 

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