The explosive story of the illegal gold trade from South America, and the three Miami businessmen who got rich on it—until it all came crashing down. In March of 2017, a team of federal agents arrested Juan Pablo Granda, Samer Barrage, and Renato Rodriguez, or as they came to be known, "the three amigos." The trio—first identified publicly by the authors of this book—had built a $3.6 billion dollar business in metals trading, mostly illegal Peruvian gold mined in the rain forest.
Their arrest and subsequent prosecution laid bare more than a scheme between a few corrupt traders.
Dirty Goldlifts the veil on a massive and very illegal international business that is more lucrative than trafficking cocaine, and often just as dangerous.
As this award-winning team of current and former
Miami Heraldreporters shows, illegal gold mines have become a haven for Latin American drug money. The gold is sold to metals traders, and ultimately to scores of unwitting Americans in their jewelry and phones. By following the trail of these three traders,
Dirty Goldleads us into a sprawling criminal underworld that has never before been in full view.
Nicholas Nehamasis an investigative reporter at theMiami Herald. He was part of the global team of journalists that broke the Panama Papers and won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting. His work covering the local real estate industry led him into the dark underbelly of South Florida's shadow economy. He earned a master's degree in journalism from Columbia University.
Kyra Gurneyis a reporter at theMiami Herald, where she has worked since 2016 and where she helped report an award-winning Panama Papers story exposing ties between Argentine officials and a South Florida real estate empire. Before moving to Miami, Kyra was a reporter at InSight Crime, a nonprofit il“+
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