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Finally the government stepped in. It wanted no trouble, and with a foreign debt of $55 billion, Brasilia had good use for new gold. Last May federal police descended on the site. All miners were registered. Liquor, gambling and the presence of women were forbidden. At the same time, however, the government offered to mediate all claim disputes, set a minimum daily wage ($18) and provided free medical care. Federal experts began to advise the miners on safety precautions and on how to increase output. Before government officials arrived, for example, many of the garimpeiros had been throwing away "black gold," an impure mixture that can be refined to yield ordinary gold and palladium, a valuable metal in its own right, as well as manganese. Says a government mining engineer: "Our job is to orient the garimpeiros. They're individualists. Many were small farmers. They know this is the chance of a lifetime." On yet another level, official price controls wiped out the barracão, with the government trucking in 40 tons of food and other supplies a week. Says one garimpeiro, "This is the cheapest place in the country."
In return for help of this kind, Brasilia demanded only one thing: a monopoly on buying up the treasure of Serra Pelada. The state mining company, Companhia Vale do Rio, opened an office at the site, and miners began to line up to weigh in and sell their gold at prices that stand at about 30% below the international peg. (The largest daily intake by the Serra Pelada so far is close to 327 lbs.) At first, many of the miners would accept only cash; it took officials some time to persuade the garimpeiros to take federally endorsed checks.
Administrators in Brasilia suggest that if illegal gold exports could be stopped and all the country's gold deposits controlled in the same way as Serra Pelada, Brazil could count on an annual yield of 300 tons of the metal. That is 40% of the production in South Africa, one of the world's leading gold diggers.