Original subtitles

Twenty-nine-year-old, Parker Schnabel,

is a gold mining prodigy.

I mean, that's $3 million right there on the table.

Over the last decade,

he's mined over $120 million of gold.

Whoo!

And for the past eight years,

Parker has scoured the Earth.

I need to go some place wild and dangerous.

Explore the places that other people don't.

And get back to the basic root of gold mining.

On his quest for the next big gold rush.

If you can survive and you can hack it,

you'll find piles of gold.

My! Are you serious?

- This season... - This is wild.

Parker takes on his biggest prospect.

Heading deep into the jungles of Brazil.

There's a huge amount of conflict over lining in the Amazon.

The only way to really understand that is to come here and see it.

Cool.

If there's opportunities to invest,

then I want to look at those opportunities.

That's great.

Nothing makes you interested in something like

having a little bit of skin in the game.

There's a car upside down.

I did get fitted for a bulletproof vest, though.

That's a first.

Mate.

When's the last time you were in a tiny little old plane?

On the eve of his next adventure,

Parker Schnabel and longtime friend

and cameraman, Danny Etheridge,

survey Parker's Dominion Creek claim

in the Klondike gold fields of North America.

Yeah, man. Let's do it.

How much of this is yours, then?

Everything the sun touches,

Does it freak you out when you see it from a bit?

It's crazy.

Aw, imagine if Grandpa John could see this.

I know.

Gold was discovered in this region in 1896,

triggering a flood of prospectors

who battled Arctic conditions to find their fortunes.

Since the original strike,

more than $40 billion of gold has been discovered.

Now, Parker's Dominion claim is some of the last good ground left.

Any time that we've had like, really good ground, it's been really small.

And now we have hundreds of acres.

So, there's a lot of weight lifted off my shoulders.

But at the same time,

I'm not near retirement.

Right. I'm 29.

I didn't buy a future. I just bought some time.

I think that the biggest opportunities in mining are outside of North America.

So, I need to start figuring out now what's next.

That was awesome.

I love this plane.

In front.

Did you get that on camera?

Mate. You got a house.

One thing about the house,

is it makes me realize I don't really need that much room.

I use about 10% of it.

It's pretty nice.

Really nice.

Right, what's happening with Bolivia?

Is that where we're going on the off season this year?

My.

A year ago...

- That's good, innit? - Yeah. It's not bad.

Parker discovered a gold streak in Bolivia

and partnered with a local miner to explore it.

I'd like to put up $25,000.

If they find lots of gold, then we split it.

- Perfecto. - Perfect.

- Have you not heard? - No.

- Like it's all flooded out. - -Mate.

Parker is still invested in the mine,

but extreme flooding and landslides

will put them out of action for months.

So, what's the plan?

I've actually been working on options in Brazil.

- Really? - Yeah.

'Cause it's like one of the biggest

gold producing countries in the world.

- Brazil. - Brazil's wild, right?

Super wild.

Mate, it's mega dangerous.

I've always been interested in Brazil

and, I know that there's a lot of opportunity there.

Get boots on the ground and actually figure out what's going on.

Yeah.

If you're in a safe, well-regulated place,

like those areas have all been mined out.

And so for me, if we're gonna be hunting for the best ground,

that means going where nobody else has gone, right?

Eighty tons of gold, worth $5 billion is mined in Brazil each year.

But for Parker to find his next big opportunity,

he'll have to brave Wild West like conditions.

Where miners fight over the best ground.

And clash with government forces.

I have my trusty backpack.

Mate, how is that still going?

It's the Terminator of backpacks.

What we did in Bolivia,

I want to be able to do that again on this trip.

Making some small investments in a bunch of different operations

and getting your foot in the door

on potential future opportunities, right?

Have you unpacked since I last saw you?

It's the same stuff.

This is a year old.

No, no. No, it's not.

It's like spread bidding.

Your foot's in the door and if it does hit,

you're the first one in helping develop,

you know, what could be a hugely profitable project.

And so, you might have to do 20 of them before one works,

but the one might pay for the 20.

Total gambling.

I think that it's potentially gonna be one of the most dangerous things we've done.

We will see 'cause we're doing it.

To find the best gold in Brazil,

Parker will travel nearly two and a half thousand miles

from central Para,

home of one of the world's biggest ever modern gold strikes,

to the state of Mato Grosso,

where nearly a billion dollars of gold is mined each year.

But his first stop, is the city of Porto Velho.

Gateway to the gold fields of the mighty Amazon basin.

Home to the legendary communities of floating dredges

known as fofocas,

that extract up to a billion dollars in gold every year.

I have been in a plane for like 25 hours.

Here we are.

Our first stop here in Porto Velho

is one of the last big frontier gold field areas in the Amazon.

You know, they have a lot of these, kind of like, home built dredging systems

called fofocas.

I'm always curious about, like, different mining methods

in everywhere we go, every country we go to.

Let's go.

And so we're gonna go hop on a boat

and go find some of these fofocas.

Hot.

And humid.

Back for his second prospect with Parker,

is Peruvian safety expert and heart surgeon,

Dr. Diego Lizarzaburu.

Diego is just like an unreal guy.

Unreal medic, unreal with security.

We're really excited to be in Brazil,

but it's always a big responsibility

being in charge of health and safety,

Particularly with Parker. That can be challenging.

Are you sweating in some unfortunate places already?

- Did you powder? - No.

Are you powdered up, Diego?

I am.

But, yeah, I do have missed them.

Danny and Parker, a couple of crazy people.

- Hey, guys. - -Joining Parker's team for the first time,

is Brazilian mining expert,

- I'm Parker. - Parker, it's so

- nice to meet you. - Larissa Rodrigues.

You too.

We brought on Larissa.

A lady that is very in the know on the mining community

and what's going on with that.

- Hey. Nice to meet you. - Nice to meet you.

- Hey, welcome to Brazil, guys. - Thanks so much.

Who wants to drive?

- Yeah. - Him.

The gold mining area in Brazil tripled in the past 10 years,

so there is a real gold rush happening here.

But anyone looking for investments here,

needs to be really aware of how the industry works

because we have so many different rules.

It can be a little bit challenging.

Right, let's do it. The beginning.

Looking for mining sites,

there is a big chance you find illegal mining.

But I know how the market works.

I know who are the players, where the gold is.

So I think it can help Parker navigate a little bit.

Whoa, you got honked at bro.

Early in the trip.

Trying to get to the river, aren't we?

Yes. The gold mining here in this state is concentrated

in the mostly river operations on dredges.

I'm guessing that we'll see a mix here of both,

some that are legal and some that are illegal, won't we?

Yeah, we'll see that.

Definitely kind of jumping in the deep end.

- We should probably take the right there. - -The right?

Larissa leads the crew to a harbor on the outskirts of Porto Velho,

where boats take workers to the gold dredges on the Madeira River.

When you look around,

it just looks fine, it's not that dangerous.

But the thing is, it is.

We need to get a boat.

- What's in those? - A small hospital.

Maybe we should just check it out.

Yeah, let's get on the water.

The Madeira River really interests me.

There's just thousands and thousands of ounces

of gold coming out of this area.

So it's good to get a lot of information from a lot of different people

and see a lot of different kind of mining styles.

The gold in the Madeira River

comes from the mineral rich Andes.

Formed millions of years ago.

Hot volcanic magma fractured the rock,

creating quartz veins in which gold then crystallized.

Over time, the gold rich veins erode into the river,

where water carries millions of tiny specks of gold downstream,

making the Madeira a 2,000-mile-long golden highway,

where dredges comb the riverbed in search of gold hot spots

that shift and change with the current.

Over there, can you see?

There's another one there.

It's almost burned.

This right there. There.

Wow.

And that's the government, like cracking down on things.

In the last 12 months,

legislation has made the area north of Porto Velho

illegal to mine for environmental reasons.

And fofocas have become a target of police raids,

creating a dangerous game of cat and mouse.

I do feel like it's important to see where the gold's coming from.

Legal or illegal.

I don't like illegal mining,

but, I'm not gonna shy away from it.

So, he's saying we need to make contacts with locals before,

so we can get access to the to the dredgers, otherwise

they won't get us on board.

Can you ask him if there's somebody here

that we can talk to about what we're trying to do?

We are going to a boat

that is owned by the

who's a well-known miner here.

Let's jump on.

No, I've done it. It's fine.

All right, let's do this.

Diego.

Boat driver, Junio's friend, Akara...

Facts.

I'm too tall.

Lives on this houseboat

and mines on the Madeira River.

How are you?

His friend Giovanni, is also a miner.

- Parker. - Parker.

Giovanni.

Does he own some of these dredges?

Is there a lot of gold found in this area?

More or less.

Like, what's a good day for one of these guys?

Two-thirds of an ounce.

Wow! In a very good day,

one kilo, 700 grams.

That's not bad.

On average, dredges can find $1,300 worth of gold a day.

But on the river's richest hot spots,

that can rise to $100,000.

Can you ask about why we've seen all these like, burned up dredges

and like, what happened to them when the other ones were getting burned down?

How long ago was that?

He's saying, like, when the operations come,

they can see them happening.

So, like, the ones that are more smart,

they find their way to hide and to run, literally.

Right. And does it ever get violent when those raids are happening?

Bombs.

- Really? - Yeah.

That seems pretty intense.

Ooh!

Is she crying 'cause that's her home?

Yeah, it was her house.

Wow.

Giovanni is telling me that he can show us his dredger that was blown up.

- Sure. - -We just need to follow him.

Step on the cross members.

He's showing us where the engine was exploded.

- Yeah. - Wow.

It's quite the explosion, isn't it?

I mean, that has taken all of that out.

Is it scary?

They go in, they drag you off.

They stick dynamite in your engines

and they blow 'em to smithereens.

I mean, that's pretty full on stuff.

And if we'd have come here two weeks ago,

we would have seen them working

rather than seeing them in sort of black, charred, scarred heaps that they are.

Can you ask him if that's the military?

- Military. What are they doing? - Yeah.

They're not gonna come and bomb us, are they?

Four military planes.

Four military planes.

On the hunt for fofocas,

dredge convoys that mine millions of dollars of gold a year.

They're not going to come and bomb us, are they?

Parker and the team spot military planes fly over a bombed out illegal dredge.

Yeah, in operations, they're like just flying low.

Helicopters. Usually are helicopters.

Right.

Despite the daily threats on their livelihoods,

Akara and Giovanni did not want to stop mining.

Was his family in mining? How did he end up mining?

So, when he was 15,

there was a chance for him to be working for, gold mining and he went

because he thought it was a chance for him to change his life.

- Right. - So.

He is doing mining that's illegal. He knows it's illegal.

But if you grow up in that circumstance

and you have an opportunity to find a way out of that,

like, you're probably not gonna worry about

what side of the law you're on. I get that.

And at the same time, you know,

is it right or wrong? I don't know.

We didn't talk very much about like the actual mining

and how they find areas to go and stuff like that.

He says it's not very good for us like to be around on the river by our own,

but we should find someone else like to take us there.

All right.

To track down the fofocas

and see the gold for themselves,

Parker and the crew need a guide with connections.

Okay.

Okay.

He's in charge of miner's union.

And actually, this Fabiano seems to be in a bar.

That it's like the gold miners bars around here.

He can give us directions there.

So we need to get out of here and we need to find Fabiano.

Should we go find our bar?

Yeah. Let's go. Let's move.

You know, I would never invest

in any sort of illegal mining operation.

But I do feel like it's important

when you're like looking at a region

and assessing what the potential is and where the gold is,

to see everything.

And if we learned anything in Peru,

it's that we love super dodgy mining bars, right?

So, I think we should go there.

Have you spent a lot of time in, miners bars, Larissa?

No, I haven't.

- No? - No.

We have.

Let's find him, have a drink.

I'm having a minimum of four beers.

So that means that I have to stay sober then

in case some guy wants to come in and beat you up.

This is like a residential street.

This cannot be it.

Okay, guys, let's go.

Be careful.

Where are we going? It's just a wall.

I think it might be better if the rest of the crew wait outside.

I can smell barbecue from here,

but it doesn't really look like a bar.

- Hang on. - Is it locked?

- No, it's... - Hi.

- What? - The weirdest thing,

coming in off the street like that.

I just asked about Fabiano,

and he told me "I cannot tell you because I don't know you."

Sometimes, he appears. Sometimes, it's hard to get.

Someone's just arrived.

Yeah, it's him.

I think it's Fabiano over there. Yeah.

This short little guy with the body tat that looks angry?

- Fabiano? - - Fabiano.

Ask him if he can join us for a beer.

He's not really comfortable

because he doesn't know us, and then we showed up, this is a private party.

Just checking. Is he cool with the filming pact?

- No. - - Yeah, it's okay.

He's saying it's okay.

From my standpoint, I always want to learn

about areas where people are mining,

understand, like, how they got there,

what they're doing, how much... you know, how much gold they're finding.

Sometimes, we've, like, made investments in mining operations.

Yeah. Yeah. Exactly, yeah.

Does he, like, own some dredges or...

He says, not today.

He used to have.

What's his... Like, what does he do now?

He says, now, he's being dedicated, like,

to represent the miners here, and together, the miners,

so they can fight for the right to be mining here around.

From what we learned today, it doesn't look like it's, like...

It is a bunch of independent people

that run, operate most of those dredges.

How often do they come and blow up?

Wow.

Like... At when... Any given time

before they, like, really crack down on it, how many were they?

So, it went from 5,000 down to 100?

He's saying he's a bit nervous because we're kind of interrogating him.

- I'm just really curious. - Yeah. Yeah. Me, too.

Like, if you go to a mining site, like to dredge,

everybody will think you're a police guy.

Parker leaves without a clear commitment from Fabiano

to show him the fofocas.

- Interesting place. Yeah. - Yeah.

If you wanna see the gold from the fofocas...

No cameras.

Guys, sorry. I'm sorry. I mean, I don't wanna get involved with it.

Like, just be careful.

This is, like, illegal... illegal smuggling, like, they are smuggling gold here.

I'm pretty clear on this. I don't want to get involved with it.

Wow. Beautiful looking gold.

I think the gold here is really pure.

Can you ask him what the purity is?

- Ninety eight percent. - Holy That's like...

- Yeah, 12, 13% higher than ours. - -Wow.

Yeah, you can tell, looking at it.

No, that's okay. That's not what I'm here for.

Yeah, let's go.

You know, I think he's gone. I think he's gone.

I'm gonna go back to the car now.

Illegal gold from the Madeira River

is estimated to be worth half a billion dollars a year,

with most of it moved on the black market.

I myself when he just jumped out of the bushes.

- That scared me, too. - You got scared?

You're not scared of anything, Diego. What are you talking about?

It feels like everybody that we're interacting with here so far

has been on the wrong side of the law.

Tomorrow, hopefully, we can get on one of those fofocas, see what's going on.

But, yes, there's lots of dangers,

and upsetting and provoking people

in an area like this could be catastrophic.

So, today was our first day in Porto Velho.

There's a lot of politics. Yeah, there's a lot of illegal mining.

They don't think it should be.

But we met a guy named Fabiano, a union leader.

So, I'm hoping we can find one of the fofocas.

I'm looking forward to kind of I'm seeing how deep in the jungle we can get.

I talked with Fabiano.

The good thing is, like, he's going to get access for us to go into the fofocas.

That would be great.

Local union boss, Fabiano, has agreed to take Parker and his team

to the infamous Madeira River fofocas

to show them how these dredges can find the hot spots

that bring in up to a billion dollars of gold a year.

- That's him. That's him, right? - That's him. Yeah, that's him.

It's just a region with a ton of gold,

and mining, at times, on the water can be

very cheap and efficient, like the dredges.

You know, back in the day in the Yukon,

they were incredibly productive and efficient.

And so, it's a good way to kind of start and expand from there.

Yeah, we're ready.

Diego has a lot of different outfits.

It's a day's journey to see the current gold hot spot.

And one of the only fofocas still floating

since the government made these waters illegal to mine.

He saw your videos on YouTube,

and you seem to have a noble heart and miner blood.

Same to you.

Fabiano's family have mined here for over 30 years.

Yeah. His father began in the industry with one of those.

The guy we spoke to yesterday at the party,

he has a dredge that was drowned up there.

- Did you say that they sunk them? - Yes.

- And refloated them. - Yeah.

They saved all of the dredges by sinking them before the police arrived.

They live on them, don't they? How do you sink your own house?

I cannot imagine how you take that out of the water. It must be really complex.

He wants to show us, like, how they managed to sink the dredges

to run from the police, and then, to pull them out of the water again.

- Yeah. - Let's do it.

Okay.

Is it that one?

The dredge was part of a fofoca.

But during a recent military raid,

it was sunk to protect the most expensive part of it,

a 16-Litre pump engine.

Just so you know the rules here

I mean, you know already, but, like, here, it's all illegal.

So, just be careful.

Like, if you go mining here, you can really get into legal trouble.

But just so you know the rules, right?

Yeah, I'm not.

- Just so you know. - I appreciate that.

How long has it been sunk?

One month, more or less.

In this one, they were on must have been sunk, too.

Yeah, it was all sunk. Yeah, this one, too.

That's why it's a bit dirty.

- All the parts, everything. - Wow.

Yeah. What a mess.

Yeah.

You know what is there? Written over there on the wall?

Know what it means?

- No. - "Gold rush" in Portuguese.

- Febre du Ouro. Yeah. - Yeah, it does.

It was the last scribbling that they made as the ship was going down.

This is Parker Schnabel's fault.

What's the process here...

Just with a rope, from this dredge, you try to pull the other one out.

I see.

Every dredge rests on floats.

To sink them quickly, the floats are filled with water.

Using the high-pressure sluice pump to refloat,

a diver attaches ropes under the main structure from two dredges,

one on either side.

Usually, each uses a come-along winch

to hoist the dredge out of the water.

But today, there is just one dredge, and one winch.

So the owner, Ronaldo, is using his super-powered tugboat

to pull from the other side.

That boat's sick.

Yeah. Meaty, isn't it?

Look at that thing.

Eager to get back on the gold, Ronaldo's divers jump in.

But as it's an illegal operation,

Parker can only watch or he risks going to jail.

So, the diver goes under the water,

ties a couple of ropes around it,

and then, they use that chain that we're seeing over there...

The ratio of gearing in that...

What could you pull with that?

A lot, right?

I don't think you can pull a dredge out of the water.

The sunken dredge is full of silt,

and weighs at least 16 tons.

Well, I guess there's two ways to float a boat, right?

Option A, professional boat salvagers

or boat floaters... whatever they're called.

We're on option B, which is just brute force.

It is always impressive, though,

just like people's ability to get creative to solve problems.

Wow.

David and Goliath!

David and Goliath!

In the heart of the Brazilian Amazon,

Parker and his crew are on the hunt

for the infamous gold mining fofocas of the Madeira River...

The rope broke.

But can only watch on as miners attempt

to pull a 16-ton illegal gold dredge out of the water.

Yeah, it's too heavy.

- And there's too much mud inside. - Right.

Ronaldo sunk his dredge to hide it from the authorities.

But now, he must recover it and get back to work.

They say that, sometimes, they do it, like, over and over again,

and the rope breaks all the time.

So, they do it, like, repeatedly until they get it out.

- Wow. - When will they try again?

He doesn't really know.

He doesn't really know, like, it's it's dynamic.

Is there a potential that they get it halfway out,

and then, they have to sink it again?

Yeah, there is a risk.

When they see the police coming, they sink it.

When operating, Ronaldo's dredge brought in

up to a $1,000 day.

But with the dredge out of commission for a month,

he and his crew are almost $20,000 down.

Sometimes, when the dredge sinks, they don't have money

to come back and to pull it out.

So, they need to go to other operations to work there as workers,

make money, and then, come back to pull it out.

Are more people coming?

No.

So, they spend days, and days, and days,

pulling these things out of the water,

which are all kind of full of mud and broken,

and they have to rebuild them.

And then, there's a very good chance

that just they get to the point where

it's rebuilt and they're ready to go again.

And then, the authorities come in and destroy it all again.

I think it's impressive that they're just carrying on.

The team head deeper into the Amazon

to the last rumored location of the convoy of gold dredges

that form a fofoca.

We are almost there. We are getting close to the place.

Yeah.

There would be so much noise,

it would be difficult for us to be talking.

Parker, watch your head.

Could you ask him why

he's asking Parker to mind his head,

but he's not asking me.

So many dredges, together.

That is cool.

They are all individual mini dredgers.

But, like, when they find some gold, they all come to the same place.

Why are they called fofocas?

Actually, "fofocas" is the Portuguese word for gossip.

It's like, people heard there was some gold there

and they were gossiping about it.

That's why they go there.

That's cool.

How many dredges were there?

He's telling us, like, that yesterday, he saw more dredgers.

And now, there's just a few because they saw helicopters.

- So, they left. - And not because...

The threat of being bombed by the authorities

forced over 30 dredges to abandon this fofoca overnight.

Wow.

Those brave enough to stay are bringing in

as much gold as possible before the next raid.

It's such an intense atmosphere,

looking down the side of them all together. Mad!

Hey, careful. He has a machete on his hands.

He's saying no to camera.

Slingshot!

He's got a sling.

My.

He's firing at us now.

He's got a sling.

Slingshot.

He's firing at us now.

In the remote Amazon basin

Parker and the team are attempting to board

a flotilla of illegal gold dredges

known as a fofoca.

Diego to India.

The kid that is on the fofocas has a slingshot,

and he's shooting rocks.

So, be careful, okay?

We're with him. So, it should be fine.

Yeah.

Watch your head.

- I just smashed it. -. Already?

This one's been burned down before.

Yeah.

There are so many things that smack, whack, rip your arm off.

Get distracted and you're... you're.

The fofocas are just like something straight out of Mad Max.

Like the ingenuity of the different systems here

to make things work out of just a bunch of spare random parts.

I mean, a diff out of a truck?

That's a truck diff under there.

That's awesome.

These dredges, built from low-cost salvage materials,

are mostly owned by families who live on the level above,

and employ four to five workers to catch the gold.

Does everybody help everybody out?

In the center of each dredge, a pump,

powered by a diesel truck engine,

attaches to a hose that must be moved constantly

to keep it just above the uneven riverbed.

The hose then sucks up water and gold-rich silt

onto a carpet-lined sluice tray which traps the heavy gold.

If he's too high, he's just pulling water

and too low, and it's plugged up.

Is there a certain depth that they're trying to get to?

Just like a vacuum cleaner.

If you put your hand over it, it's not sucking at all.

It's just blocked off.

I'll arm-wrestle him.

You know, I'm gonna ask him for an arm wrestle.

I want to know how strong he is.

He must be a machine.

Look at this set up.

So, he's made, like, a foot control so that he can just, like,

put his foot down and not have to spin the wheel

like those guys over there were doing.

That's sick.

Somebody really didn't want to spin that thing by hand.

He's, like, 80 years old.

Got a massive right arm.

One day, he'll just be like

"I'm done."

"What have I been doing?"

One impressive thing about this is how much physical work goes into this,

and how, like, really diligent you'd have to be to work on these.

Like, there's a lot of here that can kill you.

And what's a normal day's production?

Each one of these, ten grams a day.

Ten grams brings in $650 a day,

an annual total of $240,000,

shared between the dredge's owner and four crew.

Yeah.

7.5?

And that's from 20 hours?

Four hundred and fifty dollars.

That's what that is.

Hard living.

I kind of think that they just randomly bop around the river

and stick their hose down to the bottom and dredge for a few hours,

and be like, "yeah, there's gold here so we'll just, like, be here."

And then, somebody else is like, "There's more gold over here."

And so, they go over there.

And then, somebody else is like, "There's more gold over here."

So, they all go over there.

The distribution of gold

along the 2000-mile-long Madeira River

is affected by ever changing currents.

So, fofocas must keep moving to locate the best deposits.

Why don't they use any riffles?

I would use expanded metal in the sluice box if that were me.

All right. He's saying that's because

there are no rocks here. It's only gold dust and mud.

A lot of people think that gold in a sluice box like,

"gold's heavy, and it just stops in the sluice box."

That's how this is done.

But the mechanics of a properly set up sluice box

are constantly giving gold an opportunity to drop out out of the slurry,

out of the column is flowing across it, right?

Unlike the flat carpets used on these sluices,

in the Yukon, Parker uses metal riffles

to create a vortex within the water and suck down the heavy gold.

Just as a thought exercise,

let's say that the dredges are losing 20% of recoverable gold.

Forty dredges doing three ounces a day is 120 ounces.

Twenty percent of that is 24 ounces.

So, there's almost 50 grand a day that's probably being lost that's recoverable.

With a properly designed sluice box... If somebody wanted to do that,

it would be a very good business. It would make money.

The most frustrating thing about being here is,

if we wanted to make an investment,

this would be a perfect place to do it if it weren't illegal.

You know, right now, I'm like, buy a boat.

I can get some, like, welding gear, and some torches,

and a couple of truckloads of expanded metal, and a bunch of carpets,

come out here and just start,

building sluice boxes.

Yeah, that's great.

Coming up

Parker finds his first legal gold.

Are they happy? Is he happy?

It's the guy that was shooting with the slingshot at us.

Parker and his team are on one of the last remaining gold fofocas

of the Madeira River...

Yeah, he was doing that.

Where the illegal crew

live under constant threat from government raids.

He thought we were from the police.

What's his name?

How old is.

- Fifteen. - Fifteen.

Is his family here?

He doesn't have a family here.

He's here only because of the dredger owner.

He's an employee.

At 15, he's too young to work,

even if the dredge operations here were fully legal.

Does he like being out here?

He says, "Yeah. He works here."

"He makes some money. He helps his grandmother." And that's it. Yeah.

Can you tell him it was really nice to meet him?

He's very happy to meet you.

He thought he never had a chance, like, to meet you in his life.

So, when we are talking with him,

we are... I mean, we are just, like, making fun,

saying, "Hey, good luck to you.

I mean, maybe, someday, you meet Parker again."

Things like that. But then, when you leave, you know,

it's pretty hard.

At a moment, like, I mean, I can control myself. But then, it's hard.

He's by himself here. He's just a kid.

Yeah.

He's such a young dude with, like, life ahead of him.

But it feels a bit sad, sort of coming away from this

- and leaving him there, in a way. - -Yah.

That kid, very sweet boy. He's 15.

You can tell he's been through a lot, but has a very nice soul.

And I feel bad for him.

This is a rough environment for a kid, particularly it being illegal mining.

It makes you think we're, like, extremely lucky to be born where we are

and to the parents we have, right?

But, here,

he's sending money home to his grandma, he has a community with him,

people that care about him.

Where the everyday people are,

we get to see their lives and their struggles.

Mining is just such a fascinating way of looking into that,

and looking into the culture of a country.

I think, now, I'm interested in, like,

where we can have more involvement.

We should try to angle towards some of the more legal stuff, I think.

Yeah, definitely.

The storm is coming.

Still a full day's journey away from civilization,

the crew must take shelter.

If we wanted to stay the night out here,

is there a place that we can do that?

Is it comfortable?

We'll survive without a pool.

Mate.

- That is awesome. - That's nice.

That's really cool.

These traditional live-aboard riverboats

are a common sight on the Madeira River,

offering refuge in the middle of the wilderness.

Wow! We got here on the right time.

Okay, check it out.

I got it.

Look at this.

Did you have a little look around?

I want port on the way out and starboard on the way home, okay?

Look at this. My guess is, that's pretty loud.

My guess is that it doesn't work.

It does.

Thirty seconds ago, you could see the other side of the river.

And now, it's dark.

What'd you do with the rum, Dan?

It's just in the side of the bag.

Are you talking about? Which backpack?

Right. So, if I go over and it's just sat there in the side pocket...

- It's there. It's there. - Well, say it's there.

Use your eyes.

Do your own. I'm not, I'm not the bartender.

But... I mean, the problem, for me, with a lot of this kind of stuff,

is that we can't really get that involved because it's illegal, right?

- Yeah. - Like, I want to kind of get,

- like, more in the nitty gritty side of it. - Yeah. I mean...

Can you ask if there's any legal operations around?

Yeah. He says, like, in the river, there are some legal areas there

where we could explore a little bit.

The last thing I want to do is end up on the wrong side of the law. Again.

Okay.

With just 6% of the Madeira River approved for mining,

tomorrow, Fabiano will take the crew over 20 miles

to the nearest legalized zone.

- He says, yes. - More than here?

Okay.

- Okay. - Should we get ready for bed?

Yeah.

- I'm pretty wiped out. - I'm tired. Yeah.

Who is it?

He says there are pirates, like, around here.

- They can just come. - Pirates?

Who is it?

On a houseboat,

deep in illegal gold mining territory.

Parker and crew

are approached by an unknown boat.

So, they're, like, just looking for fuel, it seems.

Okay.

Really?

Do they kill people?

And I really don't know how how our night is gonna be.

We're anchored in one side of the river.

So, if someone was intending to just try

something bad against us,

we have no escaping routes right now.

So, hopefully, nothing is going to happen

because, I think, there's not much we can do.

All right. Let's get these hammocks out.

- Is this where we're sleeping? - Yep.

Just let the mosquitoes destroy us?

My back's gonna be destroyed tomorrow.

Good night. Good night.

Good night. Good night. Thanks, Fabiano.

I'm gonna turn this light off.

I'm gonna be electrocuted.

- Good night. - Nighty night.

I'll leave this live electrical cord

just attached to the end of your hammock, all right?

- Thank you, my guy. I appreciate... - Yeah. No worries.

We're sitting in hammocks, floating downriver.

There's pirates.

There's the potential for the authorities

to turn up at any moment and start blowing everything up.

And that's their lives, 24-7 here.

Yeah, the trip has been a bit of a whirlwind so far.

A lot of illegal mining.

We'll see. Hopefully, we can get into some more legal mining areas

that are a bit more relatable, and something that we can,

you know, get involved in,

and really... assess what's going on.

So, let's see what we find.

Fabiano.

Bom dia.

- Okay. All right. - We've got to get on the move.

We've got to go.

Buddy...

Ready?

- Fed, watered, ready to go? - -Yeah.

Okay, let's get out of here.

I'm ready to stop hitting my head on everything.

It's your fault for being so tall.

So, guys, I'm getting a lot of people posting on social media

that Parker is around.

So, we actually need to be really careful now.

Because we're in, you know, in a risky place.

And if people know we're here, that's even worse for us.

So, let's try to play it safe and... just pay attention to detail.

If word is spreading that Parker is in the area,

it could make the crew a target on the river.

Word's out?

It would appear so.

- Finally. - Finally. Exactly.

Finally.

Put you to work where you belong.

According to Fabiano,

the mega dredges that dominate the legal section of the river

can each bring in tens of millions of dollars in gold each year.

Like, obviously, there is sections of the river where it's legal.

And that warrants a proper investment by the owners

to have, like, a big, proper legal setup

that's not going to get blown up by the police,

and that is obviously much more attractive,

both from a mining and an investing standpoint.

- Yeah. - -That's really strong gasoline.

Maybe because of the storm yesterday.

We actually need to be careful.

Got it.

With word out that Parker is on the river

the team must stay on the move.

I think we need to be careful because we are surrounded

by gold smugglers, illegal operations, pirates.

So, I don't think it's safe for us.

It's in neutral.

I thought you didn't know anything about boats.

You little fibber, you.

Good hands.

It's one of the biggest dredges that they have here around.

- Wow. - It's huge.

My God. Look at that, Diego.

That's massive!

Measuring four and a half thousand square feet,

the Evolution dredge is one of the largest

mining for gold on the Madeira River.

"Draga Evolution."

Wow.

After two days chasing gold on the Madeira River,

Fabiano brings Parker to the Evolution dredge.

- Straight away. - Straight away. Yeah.

Perfect.

This massive operation...

Let's get into it.

Will give him the chance to see how much gold can be mined legally on the river.

I've spent millions of dollars on exploration.

So, I have a pretty good feel for what an opportunity kind of looks like,

and that there could be, like, an actual, feasible business opportunity here.

Hey, man, how are you?

Built on an industrial scale,

the Evolution dredge is a metal construction

at least five times the size of the illegal dredges.

It's a 24-7 operation run by a crew of just six.

The engines.

Why do they have two engines?

This one is the one that makes the suction.

This one rotates this piece

- this piece here that they call "the pineapple. - " -Gotcha.

- The pineapple? - -They call it "the pineapple."

- I like that. - It turns the pineapple. Yeah.

The pineapple is a sharp cutter head

at the end of a 98-foot-long hydraulic crane.

When the crane arm is lowered, the pineapple spins,

churning up the gold-rich riverbed,

which is sucked up its 18-inch diameter pipe.

A second pump pulls in clean water

that mixes with the pay gravel and takes it up to the sluice,

where heavy gold drops out of the slurry and is caught in the mats.

As the engine fires up,

the suction hose is lowered manually,

delivering 2,500 gallons of water per minute up to the sluice.

How?

Driven by a 700 horsepower engine,

the rotating pineapple gives the Evolution

an edge over the other dredgers.

Burrowing down into the harder-packed layer of the riverbed,

it can churn up more material and increase the gold potential.

This is an industrial level floating dredge.

Two engines,

1,500 liters of fuel used every day.

They run 20 hours a day.

In the four hours they're, like, resting, they're actually

taking care of the equipment.

Finally, we're in a legal mining site,

but this is like from another planet.

At its peak, the Evolution can bring in

over $32,000 a day.

The nice thing about dredges from an investing standpoint

is, they're very simple.

You know, you're not buying, like, a bunch of excavators, and dozers,

and pumps, and generators, and wash plants, like...

Everything is on the ship.

To reach the $10,000,000-a-year potential,

the crew leave nothing to chance.

Probably the most interesting thing about these dredgers

is they have a testing method where they have

that tube that comes out from the feed box,

and it, like, takes off a little bit of the pay,

and just puts it into a gold pan in a little box next to you.

And they pan that to test the ground that they're dredging.

So, you can see what's happening. I quite like that.

Operations manager, Claudinay, checks the first pan of the day.

To move the 110-foot-long dredger,

That's it. All shut down.

Owner, Aldo, uses a 400 horsepower tugboat

that pushes the floating gold catching platform from behind.

By far, my favorite part of this whole thing has been the tugboats.

I love those things. They're sick.

And I want one.

They've got some grunt, these things, don't they?

That's a wicked noise that makes when you pull that handle.

Let's go find some gold.

On Brazil's Madeira River,

Parker discovers dredge owner, Aldo, is a Gold Rush fan.

He was telling me, like, when we were inside the dredge,

he really wanted to go to Alaska

- to know your operation. - You should come.

- He can visit you? - -Yeah.

He wants to know if you get along well

- with Tony... Tony Beets. - That's a big question.

Sometimes.

All right. Where are we going?

Along the golden highway of Brazil's Madeira river,

Parker Schnabel pushes a 60-ton dredge in the hunt for gold.

Gold released from the Andes flows into the Madeira river,

where it's deposited in pockets along its 2,000-mile course.

Parker must direct the dredge to a spot near the banks

where the river slows and the heavier gold naturally drops,

creating the famous hot spots.

All right, Diego. Drop your pineapple.

Okay. Pineapple going down.

They've got an interesting setup here,

where they have a second engine running,

pumping water down to the pineapple.

The suction. I like the word, pineapple.

You can get quite a bit more volume of material.

At least that's what it seems like so far.

It's a fair bit different, like, I would say that

this one definitely costs a lot more to run. They find more gold.

But it's bigger. It's

more comfortable.

After 30 minutes of running, it's time to see

if Parker has got the crew back on the gold.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's great. That's great.

Is that from here?

This much gold in a single pan

could see them pull in around $10,000 today.

It seems like these guys are doing quite well

and got things sorted out.

And the ground that they're dredging looks quite good.

But it's not something that really interests me

from, like, an ownership or an equity standpoint.

One of the big issues for me in countries that I'm not familiar with

is, what is the regulatory risk?

If I end up mining in an area that, right now, is legal,

could it be illegal next year, right?

I'm usually looking to get involved

in something that I, like, have something to offer,

and I don't have anything to offer here, you know.

These guys are way more experienced than I am.

- Nice one. - Nice one, right?

- It was good. - Yeah, that was good.

But this was very cool to see, and I think that mining is

a big part of the country. So.

I think we're on the right track.

Yeah.

Those guys were fun.

Yeah. Good group.

And I think, when it comes to gold mining,

we're in the right place, that's for sure.

There's a lot happening around here.

It's nice to finally do something legal.

What do you think about today?

I loved today. Yeah, it was great.

It's... That goes both ways.

No, it's not.

Hey, guys...

Stay away from us.

My.

On this season of Parker's Trail...

What the is going on around this place?

This is wild.

Billions of dollars worth of gold got found by hand.

He's eyeing you right up, Parker.

Look at these bad boys.

That is awesome.

That's a lot of gold. It's crazy.

What the was that?

There's a car upside down.

I really would love to put some money into something here.

Well, let's take some microphones off.