Emerald Mountains. An important market in Colombia, more than 300 million dollars per year. A trade that has spawned violence and bloodshed.

The emerald king is Victor Carranza, the biggest producer and merchant in the world, 15 bodyguards around him day and night.

In recent years the Emerald War has killed more than 4,000 people in Colombia and attracted the covetousness of drug cartels.

Don Victor Carranza, a man in a hurry, goes to the mine almost every day in one of these three helicopters

Muzo is one of many mines in Don Victor. This is where he started at the age of 9. The mine is the whole life of Don Victor, who started from scratch and today ranked among the top 20 world fortunes by Forbes magazine, the emerald king has only one passion: farms, herds and the horses.

The Muzo mine is the best known in Colombia. 35,000 people work there permanently.

Don Victor Carranza could manage his fortune on a yacht in the Caribbean, but the mine is a need. Some days he stays more than six hours at the bridge with miners. He has a real flair for emeralds, an almost infallible instinct that takes precedence over science and the opinions of geologists.

Victor Carranza now controls 35% of world production, 70% of the emerald mines in Colombia, the most beautiful in the world according to specialists.

For buyers, the minimum is 8 million dollars, often negotiated in five minutes. And whoever buys rough stones never knows what he will get after cutting. He takes the risk of winning or losing.

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