Peru DS 003-2025-IN — Estrategia Nacional para la Reducción e Interdicción de la Minería Ilegal al 2030

Mechanism

Decree DS 003-2025-IN represents the enforcement and criminal- interdiction arm of Peru's dual-track response to illegal mining — the complementary half to the MINEM-led REINFO formalisation programme (DS 009-2025-EM, Ley 32537). Where REINFO offers a registration and compliance pathway to artisanal and small-scale miners, DS 003-2025-IN targets the remaining unregistered population — defined legally as criminal actors operating outside the REINFO/SIPMMA traceability system.

Institutional architecture. MININTER acts as lead operational agency; PCM (Presidencia del Consejo de Ministros) chairs the inter-ministerial steering body. The 17 cooperating institutions include: PNP (Policía Nacional del Perú), Fiscalía de la Nación (including specialised environmental-crime units), SUNAT (customs and financial intelligence), MINAM (environmental monitoring and mercury-contamination enforcement), MINEM (coordination with the SIPMMA traceability framework), regional governments in Madre de Dios, Loreto, and Puno, the Unidad de Inteligencia Financiera (UIF), and the judiciary.

Six strategic objectives span the full illegal-mining criminal chain: (1) prevention and deterrence of unauthorised mineral extraction; (2) intelligence-led identification of criminal networks and financial flows; (3) interdiction of equipment, inputs, and chemicals (mercury, cyanide, explosives) used by illegal operators; (4) prosecution under Decreto Legislativo 1100 (interdiction of illegal mining machinery) and Decreto Legislativo 1102 (illegal mining as a criminal offence); (5) disruption of laundering channels through Bolivia and Ecuador; (6) reduction of environmental damage in Amazonian basins (mercury contamination in Madre de Dios waterways, deforestation footprint).

SIPMMA linkage. The strategy explicitly mandates coordination with the Sistema Interoperable de Pequeña Minería y Minería Artesanal (SIPMMA) created by DS 009-2025-EM: minerals traceable through SIPMMA belong to the formalised population; minerals that cannot be reconciled against a REINFO-registered operation are classified as illegal-origin and subject to full interdiction protocols. This creates an integrated two-track governance architecture — the first time Peru has paired a hard formalisation system with a technology-backed enforcement perimeter.

Constitutional Court anchor. The strategy also implements obligations arising from Constitutional Court Case 00017-2023-PI/TC (April 2025 ruling), which found that impunity-granting provisions in previous REINFO-style legislation were unconstitutional and directed the executive to strengthen enforcement mechanisms.

Supply-chain integrity implications

Peru produces approximately 90–100 t/yr of legally declared gold, with an estimated 30–40 t/yr of additional output passing through illegal operations in Madre de Dios, Puno, and Loreto before transiting via Bolivian and Ecuadorian laundering chains into international markets. This undeclared output is material to:

• LBMA-compliant gold supply documentation: Western refiners

(Argor-Heraeus, Metalor, Asahi, Heraeus, PAMP) operating due- diligence frameworks under OECD Guidance on Responsible Supply Chains for Conflict-Affected and High-Risk Areas must screen Peruvian gold against the REINFO/SIPMMA register; a credible interdiction perimeter strengthens the traceability audit trail.

• OECD RSCM compliance burden: Tighter Peruvian enforcement

reduces the risk of laundered Madre de Dios gold entering LBMA Good Delivery bars, lowering compliance cost for refiners with Peruvian sourcing exposure.

• Upstream miner ETF exposure: Junior miners and royalty

companies with Peruvian gold operations (GDX/GDXJ constituents) benefit from reduced price competition from uncontrolled illegal supply but face operational disruption risk in overlap zones.

Relationship to the REINFO formalisation track

The two tracks are explicitly designed to interact: a miner who does not formalise through REINFO/SIPMMA loses the safe-harbour and becomes subject to the interdiction framework.

Open questions

• What quantitative reduction targets (footprint area, mercury

levels, prosecution rates) are embedded in the strategy annex text? The decree approves the strategy annex but the El Peruano publication is the landing-page record; the full annexe PDF is separately available from MININTER.

• Will PCM establish a formal monitoring dashboard, as called for

in some versions of the strategy draft circulated in late 2024?

• Enforcement capacity: PNP and Fiscalía Ambiental have historically

had inadequate resources in Madre de Dios; the strategy provides the framework but budget allocations via the annual fiscal law (Ley de Presupuesto) remain the binding constraint.

• Bolivia/Ecuador transit channel disruption: effective interdiction

requires bilateral coordination that the strategy references but does not operationalise — watch for MININTER–MINEX bilateral MOU activity in H2 2025.