Mercury Trail: The Toxic Metal Crossing From Nicaragua to Costa Rica Hidden in Eye Drops

In Los Chiles, a woman picks up Lucas’s phone and says that the “azogue” (mercury) is in short supply but there might be some tomorrow. The mercury is smuggled in from Mexico and China: it travels in eye-drop bottles. It crosses Nicaragua and the Río San Juan by cayuco and ends up in the tunnels of Crucitas, Costa Rica, where the rivers already show pollution levels 225 times higher than normal. Behind this route lies a business with a 468% profit margin and the complicity of the Ortega-Murillo regime, which lies to the United Nations while handing over its territory to Chinese companies that have fueled the gold rush and, with it, the artisanal industry that uses this highly restricted metal.