Illegal mining is a concern in Chile.
As of 2025 it was considered to be on the rise but still far below the levels of neighbouring countries like Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru.
[1] Illegal mining is greatly overrepresented relative to legal mining in deadly accidents in Chile.
[2] The term chucullero is sometimes used pejoratively for artisan miners known as pirquineros who carry out illegal mining, but this is not always the case as chucullero also refers more generally to any pirquinero specialized in precious metals, mostly gold.
[1][6][7] Llanos de Challe National Park had an incident of illegal mining in 2021.