Tungsten: From the FARC’s mine in Colombia to global supply lines?“It’s hard work but worth it,” Garcia says. Amazon Indians such as Garcia, who inhabit a Denmark-size region along the borders with Venezuela and Brazil, have for decades made a living exploring the rain forest for valuable rocks that contain tantalum and tungsten, both of which are used to manufacture smartphones and other mobile devices.
While the Indians do the digging, they rely on another, more powerful group to get the ore to market: the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known as the FARC. The rebel army uses the cash it makes from selling metals to finance one of the world’s longest-running guerrilla wars, the Colombian National Police say.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/tungsten-from-the-farcs-mine-in-colombia-to-global-supply-lines/2013/08/15/48d58b98-037b-11e3-a07f-49ddc7417125_story.html
Garcia says he has mined metals during the past year for the FARC. “People all over the world seem to want these little stones,” he says.
He’s got that right. Tungsten, in particular, is in high demand.
The dark, heat-resistant and super-hard metal is inside the engines of some of the most popular cars in the world. It’s used for screens on computers, phones, tablets and televisions. It helps mobile phones vibrate when they ring. Semiconductor makers use it to provide insulation between microscopic layers of circuitry.