Despite repeated and largely publicized government operations against illegal mining in the state of Amazonas in Venezuela, criminal networks and corrupt actors behind trade only made their presence worse.
On June 25, the Venezuelan soldiers seized seven light planes, a helicopter and nearly 7,000 liters of fuel on a clandestine landing track at the Alto Orinoco municipality, less than 25 kilometers from the Brazilian border. Bolivaria – Fanb).
The raid was the last of more than 20 insight crime interventions recorded as part of Operation Neblina 2025, a military campaign aimed at braking the illegal exploitation of strategic and metallic mineral resources, including gold, Coltan and cassiterite through the state of Amazonas.
See also: A toxic trade: illegal exploitation in the regions of Amazon Tri-Border
Launched in mid-2023, Operation Neblina is part of a larger series of military offensives targeting illegal exploitation in Amazonas, in particular from soldiers expelled some 13,000 unauthorized minors from Yapacana National Park near the Colombian border.
Since then, the fanb has declared destroying the pistols, dismantling mining camps and machines and making arrests. Most actions took place in and around Yapacana, although there were also isolated raids in the Southern ward of the indigenous territory of Yanomamiwhich extends over Venezuela and Brazil.
Hernández Lárez, praising the success of the operation on Instagram, has written that the fanb “will be constantly deployed as guarantors of ecological balance, biological diversity, genetic resources, national parks and natural monuments, and other special administrative areas of our country.”
An analysis of insightful crime
Although the Venezuelan security forces have made tactical victories against illegal mining in Amazonas, they failed to dislodge the networks orchestrating trade. Instead, military pressure has pushed mining operations into new areas.
Near Yapacana National Park, illegal mining activity has moved to smaller and hardest sites to detect such as Moyo, Maraya, Mina Cacique, Mina Nueva and Cárida. These lower profile operations leave a lower environmental imprint, complicating satellite detection and international surveillance.
Military and armed groups have appointed some of these locations such as “red zones”, in which they temporarily prohibit extraction to control flows and limit exposure, minors who worked in the region told Insight Crime. The change has made the illegal mining propagate along the stretching less in patlled of the Orinoco river while creating new extraction points that escape surveillance.
In Cárida, a sector of the municipality of Atabapo, dredges and heavy machines also appear, according to Sos Orinoco, an organization which monitors environmental destruction in Amazon of Venezuela.
See also: An opportunity in gold: Maduro and Venezuelan minors target Essequibo
Several criminal players feed the mining boom in Amazonas.
On the one hand, the National Liberation Army (Ejército de Liberación Nacional – Eln) and the Acacio Medina FrontA faction of Ex-FARC Mafia. The two groups would have worked with the tacit or explicit approval of the Venezuelan security forces.
On the other hand, Brazilian minors, known as “Garimpeiros”, who flooded Venezuela since Brazilian President Luiz at Ácio Lula Da Silva resumed his functions in 2023 and renewed the application against illegal exploitation.
“Brazil pushed them outside, but they just moved to Venezuela and saw this as a way to continue doing business,” a member of SOS Orinoco told Insight Crime, speaking under the cover of anonymity.
According to the organization, Garimpeiros operates under direct military supervision in the southern part of the Parima-Tapirapects National Park in Alto Orinoco. In exchange for “operating costs”, they have access to the clandestine pistols used to move gold in Boa Vista, the capital of the State of Roraima from Brazil.
These bribes actually serve as tolls which allow the operation of mining camps, machines and dredges in the conservation areas.
Featured image: The planes are destroyed in the southern part of the Parima-Tapirapectacto National Park. Credit: General Domingo Hernández Lárez in social media.
