At least R1,8m in cash, ten thousand rounds of ammunition, trucks, drugs and tonnes of gold are some of the items police have confiscated as they cracked down on eight illegal mining syndicates, arresting about 500 people in the last year.
This is over and above the 460 convictions recorded by the National Prosecutions Authority for the financial year which ended in March.
Police have revealed that between July last year and June, they have arrested 232 Lesotho nationals, 123 Zimbabwean nationals, 100 South Africans, 79 suspects from Mozambique, 8 from Malawi and 11 from other countries.
Police spokesperson Brig Athlenda Mathe said a unit focusing on public infrastructure crimes had been tracking the syndicates in different provinces including Gauteng, Free State, Mpumalanga and North West.
In the same period police visited 3,064 mines as part of their operations and illegal mining activities were taking place at 561 mines.
“These syndicates have been profiled and police are infiltrating and arresting illegal miners linked to them. About 543 people have been arrested since July last year and June 1 this year.”
Police records also show that they confiscated at least 177 vehicles; 17 trucks; five excavators/front loaders; 771 digging tools; 112 generators; over a thousand bags of gold.
Other items recovered include cellphones, 9,900 rounds of ammunition; 22,000 pieces of crystal meth; 6,800 Mandrax tablets, oxygen bottles and mercury bottles.
The items point to the large scale and highly resourced operations of the illegal mining crisis in SA which is also behind the violence and death in some neighbouring communities.
Last week 17 people died from a gas leak by illegal miners at Angelo informal settlement in Boksburg, East Rand.
On the scene police found loads of gas cylinders and other mining equipment.
The incident again prompted calls for a more focused and co-ordinated intervention to deal with the crisis.
A unit dedicated to illegal mining is yet to be formed, despite various pronouncements by President Cyril Ramaphosa and other cabinet ministers.
Mathe said police were at an advanced stage of putting together a permanent unit that would only focus on illicit mining activities.
Mathe said when doing investigations police often faced it off with heavily armed zama zama guards who shoot without care to protect their territories and tip off those underground.
“Police also have to operate underground and operations there are not safe with the ground sometimes being unsteady, narrow and sometimes with toxic gases. The shafts can be narrow making it hard for police to easily manoeuvre.
“Illegal miners know the shafts very well that they set up boobie traps for police along the way. Nonetheless police are not deterred and continue devising various strategies to fight this crime.
“We also urge communities to work with the police. Whenever they see something untoward or odd happening in their communities. People can give anonymous tip offs where they are not required to give their names or personal details.
Minister of police spokesperson Lirandzu Temba said: “Intelligence gathering and analysis remains one of the key operational approaches and to this day we are making arrests and taking down role players in organised crime. More collaborative work needs to be done to see the back to illegal mining.”
sibiyan@sowetan.co.za
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