BM
South Americas biggest illegal goldmine. Brazil, Garimpo Eldorado Do Juma. Alves do Silva is showing his gold teeth. Gold he found himself. He’s been working as a garimpeiro for about 30 years. –
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Eldorado do Juma was once covered by untouched rainforest; what is known as virgin rainforest. But the virgin was transformed into a mud hole of mine pits when a host of poor Brazilians arrived in the thousands. The first ones came in 2006, and since then primitive wooden houses, bars and brothels have been shooting up. At its peak, 3 to 400 kilos of gold were hosed up from the red soil every week. Back then there were approximately 8000 gold-diggers or garimpeiros as they are called in Brazil. Today, just a few years later, the output is about 10 kilos per week.