Dirty Gold: The Rise and Fall of an International Smuggling Ring by Jay Weaver, Nicholas Nehamas, Jim Wyss , Kyra Gurney

 

 

The explosive story of the illegal gold trade from South America, and the three Miami businessmen who got rich on it—until it all came crashing down.
 
In March of 2017, a team of federal agents arrested Juan Pablo Granda, Samer Barrage, and Renato Rodriguez, or as they came to be known, "the three amigos." The trio—first identified publicly by the authors of this book—had built a $3.6 billion dollar business in metals trading, mostly illegal Peruvian gold mined in the rain forest.
 
Their arrest and subsequent prosecution laid bare more than a scheme between a few corrupt traders. Dirty Gold lifts the veil on a massive and very illegal international business that is more lucrative than trafficking cocaine, and often just as dangerous.
 
As this award-winning team of current and former Miami Herald reporters shows, illegal gold mines have become a haven for Latin American drug money. The gold is sold to metals traders, and ultimately to scores of unwitting Americans in their jewelry and phones. By following the trail of these three traders, Dirty Gold leads us into a sprawling criminal underworld that has never before been in full view.

 

 

Rubies and Other Gems by Joyce DeBacco

 

 

Lily’s life isn’t going well. Her husband is clueless; her children are rudderless. It's little wonder she seeks comfort in her dreams, unaware that her grandmother’s rubies have transported her back through time to a safer, saner existence. When she learns her dream lover is not a dream after all, but a real man who lived and died years before she was born, family problems mount. Because she can’t repair the damage from the past, she vows to stay in the here and now. She almost succeeds when she accidentally sends herself back in time without her return ticket, the rubies.