Mining as State-Corporate Crime: The Case of AngloGold Ashanti in Colombia

As part of an ongoing larger research project aimed to understand the nature, causes and harmful effects of the state-corporate-organized crime interaction in Latin America since the 1990s, this contribution will focus on the activities of South African gold mining multinational AngloGold Ashanti (AGA) in Colombia. An overwhelming body of evidence and research exists describing many crimes and harms produced by mining corporations operating in Colombia. Some of them have been strongly resisted while being accused by courts and civil society organizations for engaging in fraud, corruption, theft, tax avoidance, contamination of land and water resources, systematic infringement of all kind of rules, serious safety crimes, forced displacement and destruction of local communities, unlawful dispossession of land, and the collaboration with paramilitary forces. Focusing on several AGA projects in Colombia, the aim of this chapter is to describe and explain the interconnections between AGA and governmental bodies, actors and policies, as they engage in, or promote, various forms of criminal, unethical or harmful behaviour.