Dirty Gold

In March 2017, FBI agents arrested Juan Granda, Samer Barrage and Renato Rodriguez, three Miami dealers who called themselves "the three amigos." The authors were the first to name the trio publicly. Their metals trading company had grown into a $3.6 billion operation, built largely on illegal gold mined in Peru.

The arrests and the prosecution that followed revealed much more than one corrupt finance firm. The book exposes an unlawful international trade that brings in five times the profits of cocaine smuggling and may be even more dangerous. Illegal mines in Latin America have become a place where drug money is laundered. The gold passes through metals traders and eventually reaches American buyers, who end up with it in jewelry, smartphones and investment portfolios.

Written by a team of Miami Herald reporters whose work has won awards, the book traces the careers of these three traders into a criminal underworld that has rarely been documented in such detail.