“You see, this brighter gold comes from Lugushwa, and the other comes from Namoya. It is easy to tell the difference in the quality,” said George, a gold dealer. Photo by Sasha Lezhnev – Enough Project.

A facility to erase the tell-tale hallmarks of gold’s origins?

brief note by Eric Jackson

You can tell much about a piece of unrefined gold by its chemistry.

Like where it was mined — a place with sanctions like Venezuela? A paramilitary-controlled zone in a country at war?

Or HOW it was extracted or separated. Like with mercury, perhaps in violation of Panamanian environmental laws, or of the UN’s Minimata Convention on Mercury? There is a lot of illegal mercury separation of gold throughout Latin America. People and ecosystems die.

There are not too many certified gold refineries in the world. At an unethical gold refinery the origins of gold can be erased, so that it might be marketed in violation of laws and treaties.

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