Three Miami salesmen have gold fever, as they import billions of dollars worth of the precious metal from South America. But their business plan falls apart when authorities learn the gold has connections to drug cartels and organized crime. Renowned private investigator David Bolton of South Florida-based Bolton Investigations Inc., whose professional achievements include handling the largest gold heist in Florida history, was quoted extensively throughout the program about the illegal gold mining trade, its ties to drug cartels and organized crime, and its alarming impact in the United States and South America. "Miami's biggest import and export for years was gold," said Bolton. "I am one of the few private investigators who has handled significant crimes involving the theft of gold and other precious metals. Throughout my career, I have worked closely with many of the major players in the industry as a consultant." Prosecutors said Miami received about 90 percent of the black market gold imported from Peru, Bolivia, and Ecuador, totaling hundreds of millions of dollars. Bolton said the enormous social costs of the operation extended well beyond the culprits' financial crimes. "They've used child labor in Peru and Colombia, they've been poisoning the environment, they've been deforesting the Amazon," he told "American Greed." Bolton added the workers were exposed to harsh work conditions that included exposure to deadly levels of mercury with more than 200 tons of the chemical element dumped in the heart of the Amazon.
