Manuel has been investigating the dark underbelly of what happens along the rivers of a rainforest that hosts 10 per cent of the world's known wildlife species.Before I get the chance to interview him, he reaches for his phone and explains that he's going to show me a call he received last year There are fears this will lead to widespread neurological damage and birth defects."People here in the Amazon are dying as a result of illegal mining."Manuel believes most of the illegal gold is exported as "legal gold", sold everywhere from Bolivia to the United Arab Emirates.In 2025, Peru's then-foreign minister Elmer Schialer said the illegal gold economy was seven times bigger than that of the cocaine trade, but the government's attempts to suppress the illegal mining have all proven unsuccessful.Manuel says that there have been legitimate attempts to stop it, but now the illegal industry has more power than the government, which has led to widespread corruption."But it's a huge cancer that's going to contaminate this entire territory."Jayden O'Neill is a contestant on ABC iview's Race Around The World