With silver prices spiking, here's a look at its dark history

Insider

Silver is breaking price records as demand for the critical metal surges. But its supply around the world is dwindling. We went inside Bolivia's Cerro Rico, a 15,000-foot mountain that used to be the world's largest source of silver, to see how miners spend hours searching for silver, tin, and zinc.

Transcript

00:00For over 500 years, miners in Bolivia have been digging out silver from this mountain.

00:10The precious metal is now more valuable than ever, soaring more than 150% in 2025 and hitting a record high of about $80 an ounce.

00:21AI is fueling the new demand. Silver is widely used in high-performance chips, circuit boards, and transmission networks at data centers.

00:32Now, global supplies are running short.

00:36This mountain once held the most silver in the world. But when we visited Bolivia in 2023, there was not much left.

00:45These days, the men mostly find zinc, tin, and lead.

00:58The non-stop mining has left this extinct volcano porous and unstable, and a threat to anyone who dares to work here.

01:07It's an agotator. We can't wait. But we can wait.

01:18So how do miners extract metals that are crucial to an AI future while using age-old techniques?

01:26And how do they stay safe inside a mountain on the brink of collapse?

01:31At 13,000 feet, Potosi is one of the highest cities on the planet.

01:47Cerro Rico, or rich mountain, towers over it.

01:50It made Potosi the wealthiest place in Latin America back in the 16th century.

02:01Today, it's one of the poorest.

02:04Luciano lives at the base of the mountain with his wife in a one-room house.

02:10There's no heat, just electricity and a stove for cooking.

02:16Luciano is semi-retired.

02:23But to make ends meet, he still mines once or twice a week.

02:34About 40% of Potosi's residents work in mining-related jobs.

02:39And nearly half of the population lives in extreme poverty.

02:45More than three times the national average.

02:52After 10 minutes, the bus drops Luciano at the mine.

02:55He stocks up on alcohol.

03:07And he buys coca leaves that give him energy.

03:17Then, he buys sticks of dynamite to use later.

03:19There are nearly 500 mines in here.

03:28But many are abandoned.

03:40After entering the mine, Luciano first makes an offering to el tío, or the uncle.

03:46Some historians believe the Spanish installed statues of the devil to scare the workers and instill discipline.

03:55We've been working here with you.

03:58With your protection, you won't make me suffer here.

04:03You'll always be good.

04:05You'll also be good.

04:07Legend has it that in 1544, an indigenous farmer called Diego Valpa discovered silver here while looking for his lost llamas.

04:17But it's the Spaniards who excavated most of it when they conquered Potosi in the 16th century.

04:24European engravings show how they forced more than 13,000 local indigenous peoples and enslaved Africans to work at the mines.

04:33Over the next 200 years, more than 40,000 tons of silver were shipped to Europe.

04:42Across the Spanish Empire, silver bars and coins were used as currency, funding the army and churches.

04:49Hundreds of years later, Bolivia's state mining company Comibol took over Cerro Rico.

05:00And when the price of silver dropped drastically in the 1980s, Comibol handed the mountain over to the indigenous people of the region.

05:07Currently, about 16,000 miners work here.

05:14They're descendants of the same indigenous communities who toiled here centuries ago.

05:2265 miles of tunnels connect the mountain.

05:27These rails were installed between the 16th and 19th centuries.

05:45And miners still use simple tools like a chisel and hammer to extract ore.

05:50others work with them, others don't.

06:08I don't.

06:11I always use my hands.

06:15My hands will be strong.

06:16Today, Luciano is tripping away at a vein of tin, which is black in color.

06:23But to find bigger pieces, he has to go deeper into the mountain's unexplored corners.

06:49For that, he needs dynamite.

07:13Luciano has to act fast since he's competing with other miners.

07:17He moves nearly 200 feet away after setting off the dynamite.

07:31Workers collect the broken rocks into sacks that can weigh up to 90 pounds.

07:41An elevator pulls the minerals up to where the mining carts are.

07:55The fatality rate inside small-scale mines like these is 90 percent higher than in industrialized countries.

08:07It doesn't matter.

08:13Many miners contract silicosis, a deadly lung disease caused by constant exposure to dust,

08:21usually after 10 years of working inside the mine.

08:25Luciano was hospitalized for over a year because of it.

08:31Luciano is 52, but most workers don't live past the age of 40.

08:39Luckily, he gets health insurance because he's part of one of the many cooperatives that control the mines.

08:57Each co-op has anywhere from 50 to 1,000 members.

09:01And they're all indigenous.

09:03Miners pay mostly monthly dues and a one-time membership fee that can cost up to $1,000.

09:11Members can also hire contractors to work on their behalf.

09:19Sometimes these are other members of the mining cooperative, but sometimes they're day laborers.

09:25And the whole group works together following, for example, one vein of zinc or cumplejo, the mixed ore vein.

09:35The biggest benefit of cooperatives is that miners can keep whatever they find.

09:44They could make a ton of money, enough to put themselves or their kids through school.

09:50Your children will still inherit their membership in the cooperative,

09:54but instead of actually going underground and mining themselves,

09:57they only hire out day laborers to work on their behalf.

10:01But day laborers aren't a part of cooperatives and don't get any benefits,

10:06only a daily wage as little as 10 US dollars.

10:11Luciano can make about $70 on a good day, mining lead, zinc or tin.

10:20These days, he rarely comes across silver.

10:24Most of it was exploited by 1825.

10:28But sometimes he can find traces of it in rocks.

10:32There's the money.

10:34This is clear that we say yes.

10:47All the minerals are dumped into pits off the side of the mountain.

10:51They're sorted and then sold to middlemen who are buyers for foreign companies.

11:02Trucks transported out of Bolivia, which is landlocked, to ports in neighboring Chile.

11:08Then, the unrefined minerals are shipped overseas.

11:12In 2021, Bolivia sold nearly $1.3 billion worth of zinc.

11:19Its uses include cars, batteries, even paint and rubber.

11:24Most of it ends up in South Korea, where it's processed at factories.

11:29In addition to refining zinc, they're also able to extract indium,

11:34which is a mineral that is needed for a lot of touch screen and high-end technologies

11:40that is much more lucrative than the unrefined zinc that the Bolivians export.

11:45The Bolivians do not receive any money for the indium that they export.

11:50It's often treated as a flaw.

11:53While mineral exports keep Bolivia afloat, decades of excavation have destabilized Cerro Rico.

12:06Now, it's slowly sinking because of mining at the very top.

12:11It's incredibly dangerous to be mining in the tip of the mountain because cave-ins are so increasingly common there.

12:20But it's also one of the places where there is the most remaining mineral.

12:25And so a lot of people are willing to take very high risks.

12:29In 2014, a presidential decree was passed to stop excavation above the 14,000-foot mark.

12:37But several cooperatives did not sign the agreement.

12:41Now some experts say Cerro Rico is like a piece of Swiss cheese with many holes in it.

12:48The cooperative miners aren't coordinating where they're going to go, what vein they're following.

12:53And so you can have a lot of structural problems that develop in the mountain when two miners are working quite close to one another,

13:02both following separate veins, but not leaving enough rock there to hold up the tunnel for anyone else who comes after.

13:12State mining company Comibol is in charge of keeping the mountain structurally safe, even though it doesn't own the mines.

13:20For Bolivians, it's a monument.

13:25Since years ago, Cerro Rico is in the national shield.

13:33Gregorio Socaño Coro is a technician for Comibol.

13:38Today, he's overseeing a project funded by the Bolivian government to fortify parts of the mountain.

13:45They're pumping cement into the peak to stabilize the shaky rocks.

13:49Gregorio wants Cerro Rico to continue to be a source of pride for Bolivians.

13:56But today, it is an endangered World Heritage Site.

14:02And the livelihoods of thousands of locals are at stake.

14:05Gregorio wants Cerro Rico to continue to be a source of pride for Bolivians.

14:11But today, it is an endangered World Heritage Site.

14:15And the livelihoods of thousands of locals are at stake.

14:20Well, the miners in the interior of Cerro Rico work almost 24 hours.

14:30It's economic support for Potosí.

14:35Every so often, Luciano visits this local cemetery.

14:50And here is the place to cooperate with all the miners who have been.

14:56From my neighbors.

14:58From my peoples.

14:59From my ex-employer.

15:00Today, he's paying his respects to his late cousin, Zacharias.

15:03to his late cousin Zacharias.

15:33Historians estimate about 8 million miners have died here from illnesses or accidents

15:41since the 16th century.

15:45Some graves here are nearly 200 years old.

15:50While Luciano relies on El Tío for support in the mines, here he prays to Jesus.

15:55Both inside and outside, protect us.

16:00I am a poor man.

16:07Meanwhile, Cerro Rico continues to loom over the city.

16:12A source of pride, fear and sorrow for Bolivians.

16:25A source of pride, fear and sorrow for the city.

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