The Hidden Cost of Gold: Birth Defects and Brain Damage

One international smuggler arrested last year was Chander Hass Khera, an Indian citizen. Seized documents show that he shipped 9.7 tons of mercury to South Africa, Thailand and India in 2017.

Last year, he bought an additional 3.8 tons from a dozen traders, said Dyah Paramita, a researcher at the Center for Regulation Policy and Governance in West Java, who reviewed court records.

Soon after the smuggler’s arrest, most of his confiscated mercury disappeared from police custody. The police told the court they were investigating.

Mr. Khera was sentenced to 18 months in prison for trying to ship mercury produced without proper permits.

Like methamphetamine labs in rural America, mercury distillation often takes place in remote areas, far from prying eyes.

Mr. Cece, 64, the prolific backyard mercury producer, began mining gold as a young man.

In 2010, as wildcat mining boomed, he said he started searching for cinnabar, the ore from which liquid mercury is produced.

Inspired by his years vaporizing mercury by blowtorch, he constructed a simple concrete furnace with a narrow trench in the center for a wood fire, steel buckets to heat the reddish ore and fixtures to capture the mercury as it cooled and liquefied.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/09/world/asia/indonesia-mercury-pollution-gold-mining.html?emc=rss&partner=rss