Andean Group - July 2026

One glaring problem following the mining reform that was promulgated by President Delcy Rodríguez on 16 April is the fact that much of Venezuela’s mineral wealth is in areas under the sway of illegal armed groups. These groups, ranging from Colombian guerrilla forces such as the Ejército de Liberación Nacional (ELN) to Venezuelan organised crime groups known as ‘sindicatos’, have established a wide-ranging presence in Bolívar state, which is home to Venezuela’s richest mineral reserves and extends from the Colombian border in the west to the Guyanese border in the east.

Dislodging these groups from the mining belt will likely be a prerequisite for attracting international investment in the mining sector, which, unlike the growing external interest in the oil sector following the passage of a hydrocarbons reform in January, has been slow to materialise. The main area that is likely to be of interest to international companies is the Orinoco Mining Arc, a 112,000km² ‘strategic development zone’ that was designated by former president Nicolás Maduro (2013-2026) in 2016, and which covers much of Bolívar state. The zone’s mineral reserves remain largely untapped as foreign investors shied away amid escalating sanctions that were introduced from 2017.

Criminal groups filled the vacuum and have established an extensive web of illegal mines in central and southern Venezuela. Under Maduro, the authorities were widely believed to be collaborating with these groups to extract mineral wealth from the region [SSR-23-01]. In July 2025 the Brussels-based NGO International Crisis Group said in a report that: “Illicit gold mining in Venezuela’s south has been rife for two decades and grown apace over the last ten years, as criminal groups and guerrillas have seized control of large parts of the states of Bolívar and Amazonas. Since 2022, the Venezuelan government has sent troops into the area, arguing it is acting to protect the environment and dislodge the illegal miners. But the armed forces do as they please with the mines.”

Rodríguez sends in the military

In an apparent effort to reduce the lawlessness of the mining region and assuage the concerns of foreign investors, President Rodríguez seems to have ordered a significant military operation in Bolívar on 9 June – although this was not confirmed by either the government or the armed forces (FANB).

Details on the operation have largely come from the Venezuelan NGO SOS Orinoco, which announced on 9 June that “there are significant movements by the FANB and organised armed groups”. Sharing footage of hundreds of people running from a mine and a military helicopter flying over houses amid the sound of gunfire, SOS Orinoco said that there had been “strong military activity and clashes” in the Las Claritas and Km 88 areas of Bolívar’s eastern Sifontes municipality, near Guyana, and that “reports indicate that they’re trying to push out the structures of organised armed groups that control the strategic Las Brisas-Las Cristinas complex”. Meanwhile, in the nearby El Dorado area of Sifontes, the NGO said that criminal gangs had “begun rearguard movements in anticipation of possible actions against them”.

In El Callao municipality, another major hub of criminal mining in Bolívar, SOS Orinoco said that inspections were being carried out amid an intense security presence at processing plants belonging to state mining firm Corporación Venezolana de Minería (CVM), and that “interest seems to be centred around gold infrastructure”.

Human rights concerns

Venezuelan human rights NGO Provea warned on 9 June that previous criminal crackdowns on illegal mining involved “hundreds of abuses, including extrajudicial executions and violations against civilians who were not involved in the conflict”. Provea added that “the Venezuelan State abandoned its obligations to provide security and quality of life to the residents of this region of the country” and said that “this abandonment cannot now be substituted with a pendulum swing based on the excessive and indiscriminate use of public force”.