One American hunts for emeralds in Colombia. But many want to stop him.

Burgess had no mining experience. But he passed Carranza’s message on to private equity people he knew “and then found myself, much to my surprise, helping to set up and run an emerald mining company.” Burgess declined to name the owners or investors behind MTC, besides saying some of them were Americans. In 2009, the company started operating Carranza’s Muzo mine.

Since then, the company has sought to graft a modern corporate approach onto an outlaw industry. Miners used to work for food and whatever emeralds they could steal, but the company, which has become the state’s second-largest employer, pays its roughly 600 mine workers at least $420 a month, about twice the national minimum wage, plus health insurance and other benefits. Industrial machinery is replacing picks and shovels. The company is digging a ramp that, when finished, will spiral into the mountain for nearly two miles, down to a depth of 1,300 feet, big enough that emeralds can be driven out by four-wheelers rather than loaded into cumbersome handcarts, as in the older shafts. And in an industry where pocketing a few stones was customary, the Americans have brought stricter vigilance: Behind miners operating hydraulic jackhammers, another employee films the work to prevent theft.

“We are the pioneers in changing this and we’re pretty proud of it,” Burgess said. “We’re opening up the whole region to the outside world.”

MTC has won praise from some inside and outside the industry for its reforms.

The Americans “bring order to the mineral extraction,” said Archbishop Hector Luis Pabon, one of the Catholic Church leaders who worked to bring peace to the region. “ They will pay the miners fairly, they will take care of things, and they will educate people so their salaries are not spent only on beer.”

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