Drug Cartel Gold Sourced from US, Canadian Mint Coins

(MENAFN) The US Mint and its Canadian counterpart have for years unwittingly — or negligently — incorporated gold linked to one of Colombia's most powerful drug trafficking organizations into their official coinage, a sweeping investigation by The New York Times has found.

The explosive report exposes a yawning gap between the patriotic branding of American coins and the murky criminal networks allegedly underpinning their production. The US Mint markets its coins as being produced "to connect to the founding principles of our nation," and federal statute explicitly mandates that all gold used be of domestic origin. Yet the entire sourcing framework, the NYT concluded, is "based on a lie."

Reporters traced hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of foreign gold flowing into the Mint's supply chain — metal of uncertain provenance, as well as gold originating from Colombia and Nicaragua, where criminal organizations have entrenched themselves within the mining sector.

A significant portion of the tainted supply originates in northwestern Colombia, a region where vast stretches of territory fall under the control of the Clan del Golfo cartel. Miners operating under the cartel extract gold using mercury — a hazardous substance that poses severe risks to workers' health and causes lasting environmental damage. So brazen is the operation, the NYT reported, that workers were observed extracting the metal directly on the grounds of a military installation.

From there, the gold is exported to Dillon Gage, a Texas-based refinery and a primary supplier to the US Mint. According to the investigation, the company blends the foreign metal with domestically sourced gold — a process the NYT characterizes as effectively laundering the illicit supply. Crucially, the US Mint performs no verification of the gold's origins.

When initially approached for comment, the Mint told the NYT that "its gold came entirely from the United States, as the law requires." Confronted with the investigation's evidence, however, the agency reversed course, acknowledging only that the US was its "primary" source of the precious metal.

The trail does not end at the US border. The NYT found that Canada's national mint is also implicated, despite having formal vetting procedures in place. Canadian officials justified continued procurement by labeling the gold as "North American" — a designation that, they argued, reflects the metal's blending at the Texas refinery. That classification, the report explains, effectively exempts authorities from tracing the gold back to its original source, shifting responsibility onto US-side checks that were never conducted.

Compounding the accountability gap, the NYT noted that even if the Canadian Mint violated its own internal guidelines, "it would face no legal consequences" — because manipulating the "North American" designation carries no criminal penalty under current law.

The investigation surfaces at a moment when gold has been on a prolonged record-breaking rally, propelled by aggressive central bank accumulation, US Federal Reserve rate reductions, and heightened geopolitical instability worldwide.

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