THE DODGY U.S. MINT GOLD SUPPLY CHAIN

Every year, the United States Mint sells more than $1 billion of investment-grade gold coins. Each is stamped with an icon like the bald eagle, signifying the government's guarantee, required by law, that the gold is 100 percent American.

"To hold a coin or medal produced by the Mint is to connect to the founding principles of our nation," the Mint declares.

But a New York Times investigation has found that the government's program of gold sales is based on a lie. The Mint is actually the last link in a chain that launders foreign gold, much of it illegally mined, for an insatiable market.

The Mint buys gold that originates in a Colombian drug cartel mine. It makes Lady Liberty coins out of gold from Mexican and Peruvian pawn shops and from a Congolese mine that is part-owned by the Chinese government, records show. Some Mint gold has come from a company in Honduras that dug up an Indigenous graveyard for the ore underneath.

Congress in 1985 prohibited the Mint from making bullion out of foreign gold because it wanted to insulate the process from human rights abuses, primarily in apartheid South Africa. The Mint has flouted that law, across Democratic and Republican administrations, despite internal warnings.

Now, even President Trump's 24-karat gold coin, commemorating the United States' 250th birthday, could come from a swirl of non-American gold from any number of sources.

The Mint, the biggest name in the global market for investment gold coins, is an example of how the industry's guardrails have collapsed. Gold prices hover around $5,000 an ounce, about four times the price of a decade ago. That gives criminal organizations and fly-by-night operators a huge incentive to mine in wasteful, destructive and risky ways.

The easier it is to sell this gold on the world's legitimate exchanges, the easier it is to make war, sustain an autocracy, launder money or destroy the environment. Drug cartel gold ending up at the U.S. Mint is one example of that process in action.

We tracked hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign gold entering the Mint's supply chain in recent years. That includes secondhand gold, with provenance that is difficult or even impossible to determine, and gold from countries like Colombia and Nicaragua, where the industry is linked to criminal groups.

When we first approached the Mint, a spokesman said that its gold came entirely from the United States, as the law requires. After we shared our findings, the Mint said the U.S. was its "primary" source and said it was taking steps to better track its gold.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, whose department oversees the Mint, said he would investigate the gold procurement practices.

To read the complete article, see:
U.S. Mint Buys Drug Cartel Gold and Sells It as ‘American' (https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/26/world/americas/us-mint-gold-drug-cartel-colombia.html)

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