On June 1, 2025, at almost 11:00 p.m., a container arrived at the Port of Callao in Peru. Five days earlier, it had departed from the port of Manzanillo, Colima, Mexico. The shipping documents indicated that it was carrying 800 sacks of crushed stone, each weighing 25 kilograms, with Bolivia as its final destination. The cargo, however, never left Peru.
Following an intelligence alert, the Peruvian National Superintendency of Customs and Tax Administration (SUNAT) intercepted the shipment. A laboratory analysis determined that the stone was impregnated with mercury, a key input for illegal gold mining, the importation of which requires special permits. The amount of the metal was estimated at four tons, valued at more than $500,000 USD, or approximately 8.7 million pesos, according to customs authorities.
OjoPúblico reconstructed the smuggling route using tax records, business records, and documents obtained through the Transparency Law. The investigation shows how transnational crime obtains supplies for illegal economies and allegedly collaborates with local businesses, including a Peruvian metals trader authorized to trade gold.
According to documents from the Peruvian Attorney General’s Office accessed by OjoPúblico, on June 26, 2025, the case of the seized container was taken over by a national prosecutor’s office, as it involved a potential crime with international scope, related to the alleged trafficking of mercury between Mexico, Peru, and Bolivia.
The seizure was also cited in a report prepared last year by the NGO Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA). Between April 2019 and June 2025, the organization detected 50 concealed shipments of mercury from Mexico, 37 of which were destined for Peru, solidifying the country as the main market for this illicit trade linked to illegal gold mining.
According to the EIA report, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) is behind the extraction of this metal in Mexico, controlling mercury mining in some mines in the state of Querétaro. OjoPúblico’s analysis, based on tax documents, allows for the reconstruction of the mercury smuggling scheme from Mexico to Peru.
