The front page of last week's Mining Journal has a story titled: "Mining experts call on Peru to fight illegal gold"
The report came from Peru-based Macroconsultant and could be compared to a report form the BBC about gold over-taking drugs as the commodity of greatest interest to criminals.
The report said one in five ounces of gold from Peru were illegal but said that government efforts to tackle the problem should focus on the entire supply chain with the report's author Elmer Cuba saying: "It should take advantage of the existence of information on merchants and exporters of gold, which do not exist for the drug trade."
The scale of the problem in Peru has seen illegal gold miners take on police in pitched battles. Here's a BBC video about the problem in Columbia.
Unrest and fear also surrounds legitimate mining firms particularly Newmont's operations in the Peruvian region of Cajamarca and Xstrata in Espinar.
