Comments by "Samson Soturian" (@samsonsoturian6013) on "Borders French Guiana/Brazil: The uncontrollable Frontier" video.

  1. Often these guys pan for gold on each other's land. And you need a license, and to get licensed you need to mine gold the right way. That is, not get gold from stone by soaking it in mercury, and not purifying the gold by burning off the mercury with a blow torch (yes, this is as hazardous as it sounds). The right way involves reacting the gold with cyanide, so special skills and equipment is needed which a lot of poor miners don't have. Also, given the practice of bribery, it is super easy to abuse licensing requirements for profit.
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