illegal mining groups

Illegal mining in North West Province is conducted by heavily armed criminal groups controlling redundant mining sites and shafts, regulating access, extraction, and movement of materials.

“The police officials in the North West are faced with large-scale criminality by heavily armed criminal groupings conducting illegal mining activities at redundant mining sites or inadequately secured mine shafts. The illegal mining activities are conducted under the control or direction of organised groups or networks who regulate access to mining sites, coordinate the extraction of material, and control its onwards movement.”

Illegal mining groups are armed with automatic rifles, pistols, revolvers, and sometimes hand grenades, equipped with logistics and gold refining paraphernalia, and continuously engage in onward trafficking and money laundering.

“These illegal mining groupings that get illegal access to mine shafts, both underground and to protection surface, are armed with automatic rifles, with pistols, revolvers, and in some instances we even found hand grenades. At some of the scenes we will recover in excess of 100 or more rifles from the perpetrators, as well as sufficient ammunition to continue a firefight for at least 24 hours. In one instance we recovered only AK-47 ammunition, 6000 rounds of ammunition. It goes without saying that it shows us how well equipped these criminals are within the organised crime space. They have logistics supply chain streams that provide them with food, as well as gold refining paraphernalia that they use both underground and on surface, and then there is always visible and available market to facilitate the onwards trafficking with subsequent money laundering that is taking place on a continuous and ongoing basis.”