Oct 11, 2026 · 22 min · 10 segments
Lucia Chicaiza lives in northern Ecuador, in a sleepy farming town of just over 2000 people, at the foot of the Andes. She also happens to live near a lucrative gold and copper deposit that has…
Marta Pascual JuanolaGuest
Samantha Selinger-MorrisHostAnd that's
like the same thing that most locals told me while I was there, that up until 2017, it was a pretty simple, blissful life.
And that that all came to a head in 2017 when they discovered gold in the ridges around the town.
And so what that created was a mad rush that drove thousands of illegal miners into the parish.
And with that came a massive campaign of violence as different organized crime groups tried to take control of those illegal mines.
All of a sudden, in a town that barely had any shops, you all of a sudden had bars, brothels, all controlled by those organized criminals that were running the mines.
And so that all goes on until about 2019 when there's a major shootout between different organized crime groups.
And so the Ecuadorian government has no other option but to actually intervene.
And so they send a contingent of police and military to essentially evict all the illegal minors that are sort of lodged in this part of La Merced, Buenos Aires.
But then locals started hearing rumors about a mining company that was tied to Australia's richest woman, Gina Reinhardt.
And so locals that are horribly scarred by that experience of what illegal mining had brought to their parish decide that they don't want mining on their land.
And at that point in time is where the resistance against Hanrein starts.
And that's
like the same thing that most locals told me while I was there, that up until 2017, it was a pretty simple, blissful life.
And that that all came to a head in 2017 when they discovered gold in the ridges around the town.
And so what that created was a mad rush that drove thousands of illegal miners into the parish.
And with that came a massive campaign of violence as different organized crime groups tried to take control of those illegal mines.
All of a sudden, in a town that barely had any shops, you all of a sudden had bars, brothels, all controlled by those organized criminals that were running the mines.
And so that all goes on until about 2019 when there's a major shootout between different organized crime groups.
And so the Ecuadorian government has no other option but to actually intervene.
And so they send a contingent of police and military to essentially evict all the illegal minors that are sort of lodged in this part of La Merced, Buenos Aires.
But then locals started hearing rumors about a mining company that was tied to Australia's richest woman, Gina Reinhardt.
And so locals that are horribly scarred by that experience of what illegal mining had brought to their parish decide that they don't want mining on their land.
And at that point in time is where the resistance against Hanrein starts.
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