The Amazon Gold Alliance (AGA), facilitated by Amazon Aid, continues to foster innovative pilot projects that aim to address the negative impacts of illegal gold mining in the Amazon — always through a lens of co-creation and impact.

Transparency in the ownership and control of companies operating in the extractive resource sector is a key pillar in the fight against corruption, tax evasion, money laundering, and illicit financial flows. In Colombia, extractive industries — including minerals, oil, and gas — play a significant role in the national economy but are also exposed to high risks of opacity and the misuse of corporate structures. These risks are even more pronounced in complex value chains and sectors such as gold, where informality and weak traceability create additional vulnerabilities.

As part of our Financial Integrity initiative, and in partnership with the Ministry of Energy and Mines of Colombia, the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative International Secretariat (EITI) through the Opening Extractives programme, we held the first-ever workshop in Colombia dedicated to authorities from the extractive sector, focused on beneficial ownership transparency in natural resources and supply chains.

Amazon Aid’s project manager for the AGA, Katherin Alfonso; alongside Alexander Malden, EITI Policy Manager; Emmanuel Burgoa, EITI Country Officer for Latin America the Caribbean and Andrea Sarmiento, Legal Associate for the Colombia and Peru Forest Program of the Center for Climate Crime Analysis (CCCA), conducted a one-day workshop to:

1. Understand key concepts, risks, and international frameworks related to beneficial ownership transparency in the natural resources sector.
2. Identify challenges and opportunities to strengthen beneficial ownership transparency in Colombia, through improved institutional coordination, data sharing, and risk mitigation.
3. Identify opportunities to use beneficial ownership data in their work for accountability purposes and support domestic cooperation on the access to and use of BO data in Colombia.

Additionally, we explored real-world cases involving the use of shell companies to launder profits from illegal mining and disguise the illicit origin of gold in Colombia & key methodologies to uncover beneficial ownership links through open-source data analysis, from the Peruvian gold mining case study developed by the AGA member the Center for Climate Crime Analysis (CCCA).

During the workshop, more than 12 national-level institutions joined us in an open, productive dialogue. They shared insights on how this information can strengthen procurement, licensing, and due diligence processes within the mining-energy sector. Encouragingly, there was strong interest in improving the interoperability of beneficial ownership data — which, as of now, is only accessible to seven oversight entities in the country. Here are some of the ideas and considerations from the Colombian authorities related to the challenges for the beneficial ownership use and implementation in the extractive sector:

• Limited coordination between public entities and the private sector.
• Technological barriers affect data reporting, traceability, and verification.
• Data reported by companies is often biased and lacks quality control.
• Weak incentives to promote transparency at the local level.
• Public officials in high-risk areas face threats and limitations to reporting.
• Difficulties in applying beneficial ownership standards in rural areas.
• Low technical capacity for due diligence among small miners (e.g., risk matrix preparation).
• Authorities report major gaps in data verification and access.

Participants also reflect on potential uses of the beneficial ownership data in the extractive industries, regardless of giving some entities access to the centralized registry that operates in Colombia. Here are some of the ideas that came out of the workshop:

• Establish a High-Level Mining and Hydrocarbons Roundtable to engage identified BOs in joint anti-corruption and transparency strategies.
• Use the information to make stronger due diligence in supply chains
• Support formalized small-scale miners in joining responsible supply chains.
• Ensure serious gold buyers verify the origin of gold and meet due diligence standards.
• Strengthen data sharing between oversight bodies
• Leverage existing financial instruments to require BO certification in financing processes.
• Use BO data to analyze criminal convergence and support investigations and asset recovery efforts.

The dialogue and learning space fostered during this workshop represent the first seed for encouraging Colombia’s extractive sector to start thinking about how to improve the processes for obtaining beneficial ownership information related to the sector, as well as how to make effective use of that information. Thanks to this space, it was also possible to connect oversight and control entities working on financial crimes, environmental crimes, and other offenses with the authorities responsible for regulating the mining sector in the country.

We would like to give special thanks to the Ministry of Mines and Energy of Colombia, whose EITI Colombia team organized the event, as well as to the Financial Intelligence and Analysis Unit (UIAF, for its acronym in spanish) and the National Tax and Customs Directorate (DIAN, for its acronym in spanish) for supporting the development of this inter-agency workshop.

From left to right: Andrea Sarmiento, Legal Associate for the Colombia and Peru Forest Program of the Center for Climate Crime Analysis (CCCA); Katherin Alfonso, AGA’s Project Manager; Frederic Masse, Red Coral; Emmanuel Burgoa, EITI Country Officer for Latin America the Caribbean; Camila Saiz, Colombia’s EITI Coordinator; to be confirmed; Alexander Malden, EITI Policy Manager