Illegal gold mining has been on the rise for the past decade in SA. Worsening ore grades, rising costs (as shafts have been sunk ever deeper), bouts of labour and social unrest, and falling investment have all contributed to a sharp decline in the gold mining sector. As a result, widespread layoffs have halved the number of workers in the industry — from 190,000 in 2018 to just 95,000 last year.
As large mining operations have been shuttered, abandoned shafts have become ready targets for growing numbers of illegal miners. Many of these "zama zamas" — a Zulu term that roughly translates as "take a chance" — are from neighbouring countries, such as Lesotho, Eswatini, Mozambique and Zimbabwe, and have worked in the mines before.
Zama zamas often spend months underground without surfacing, and depend heavily on outside support for food and other necessities. It is arduous and dangerous work; some carry pistols, shotguns and semi-automatic weapons to protect themselves from rival gangs of miners.
"The length of time they spend underground depends on the depth of the mine and access to it," says Lyle Pienaar, an executive for risk and security at gold producer Pan African Resources. "We had one guy who told us when he came up that he’d been underground for up to 18 months.
"In deeper mines, they tap into the mine’s electricity supply. And they’ll take everything down with them: food, booze, fridges, little DVD players, mining drills and phendukas [crushers].
"Biltong is hugely popular; it’s almost a staple food. Often it is boiled with water to make a soup. I know of a number of butchers near mines that sell thousands of [rands’] worth of the stuff every month.
"In some cases, there is literally an underground economy, where gold is sold to corrupt mining staff, who then take it up and smuggle it out above ground. Conversely, money is smuggled back down."
Photographs of arrested zama zamas taken as they emerge from the mines attest to the physical toll of months spent underground; it manifests in a ghostly pallor around the eyes.
In 2017, Sibanye-Stillwater, one of SA’s largest gold producers, began clearing illegal miners from its shafts in Operation Zero Zama. It led to 1,400 arrests by mine security.
In e-mail correspondence, Sibanye representatives say a decrease in arrests the following year was testament to the success of the operation.
Then, in late 2018, the company’s gold operations were hit hard by a strike by the Association of Mineworkers & Construction Union. During the strike, which lasted until April 2019, violence erupted between rival miners’ unions.
The halt in operations provided an opportunity for illegal miners.
"The 2018 strike caused a bit of a setback to us," says Sibanye head of protection services Nash Lutchman. "The illegal miners took the gap to start returning underground, which put us on the back foot."
The challenge in tackling illegal mining goes beyond labour disputes. Over the past decade criminal networks involved in illegal mining have exploited the decline in the state’s law-enforcement capacity and the rise in corruption — particularly during Jacob Zuma’s presidency — to grow in sophistication and influence.
"What happened during the Zuma years was that there was a systematic disempowering and dismantling of state organs such as the National Prosecuting Authority, and an eroding [of] expertise in serious economic offences and metals-related offences [units]," says Lutchman.
It put the wind in the zama zamas’ sails. "They have always been sophisticated, and what the Zuma years did was make them better. This is a big driver behind illegal mining activity."
To fill the void left by police, mining companies have had to establish their own parallel investigative capacity.
"We can’t go to the local police station near a mine with information about syndicate activity because of corruption," says Pan African Resources’ Pienaar.
"The police have warned us about this themselves. Instead, we have handed over a lot of information to the directorate for priority crime investigation [the Hawks], crime intelligence [and] provincial and national police structures. But nothing ever transpires, and you can see the syndicates getting bigger and bigger and starting to legitimise themselves, laundering money into lodges, taxi businesses, liquor stores and guest houses.
"At one of our mines we have arrested more than 4,000 illegal miners in the past two years. We account for about 85% of the crime statistics at that police station. But not a single detective or police vehicle has been assigned to deal with this. We have to gather the evidence, we write the police docket and make a copy in case it goes missing; we have to transport the people we have arrested to the police station, because the police won’t come and fetch them. Then we have to track the dockets and the prosecution."
Police data for illegal mining offences is not available because there is no specific law forbidding the activity, according to security consultant and analyst Louis Nel. People can be charged for illegal possession of gold-bearing material, but he says this is seldom done as it requires laboratory work that can take months or even years.
Typically, those involved in illegal mining are instead charged with trespassing or immigration offences.
"The criminal justice system treats it as a misdemeanour. Even if they are caught with tools, generators or mining equipment going down into a mine, it is trespassing," says Pienaar.
"These cases are not treated as organised crime cases and they should be. These are people who are part of a syndicate."
Those in control of the syndicates apparently pay for legal representation for miners who are arrested, suggesting the illicit enterprise is highly organised.
Corruption in the mining industry itself has also hampered efforts to root out illegal miners. In some ways, it poses a much bigger threat in the long term.
Data shared by Sibanye shows that the number of its employees or contractors charged with aiding and abetting illegal miners rose from 141 in 2018 to 184 last year. So far this year, 137 members of its staff have been arrested.
Aside from the fact that there is a lack of effective policing and a prevalence of rampant corruption, Pienaar says, illegal mining has deeply entrenched the criminal economy in communities around mines. As a result, "neighbourhoods that depend on the illegal mining economy will support it 100%".
As much was clear in 2017, when Sibanye attempted to cut off supplies to illegal miners at its Cooke operation, 50km from Joburg, and force them to the surface. The company arrested several employees suspected of colluding with the zama zamas.
It also began providing meals before and after shifts to prevent employees from smuggling food to the illegal miners.
"The fact that we restricted supplies of food initially really throttled the illegal mining activities," says Lutchman.
But Sibanye’s efforts triggered a strike among its staff and an angry community response.
"It related to the kind of investment the illegal mining syndicates were making in the communities around the Cooke operation," he explains. "They were providing food parcels, they were stocking libraries and clinics, removing waste and providing water tanks. They were seen as bringing benefits to the community. They were seen to be delivering services whereas the government wasn’t."
The hard lockdown imposed by the government from March 27 brought mining operations across SA to an abrupt halt. Mines were gradually allowed to restart in May, as restrictions were relaxed.
Sources with links to zama zamas in the Free State describe the lockdown as a double-edged sword for the illegal miners. While the shutdown allowed them to continue mining relatively undisturbed, it also deprived them of vital support from corrupt mine employees above ground.
With no communication with the surface, many zama zamas would have been oblivious to the Covid pandemic until they were starved out of the mines.
"Some of the guys who were underground were forced to come out because they could not get their supplies," an industry source says. "This happened at Harmony and Sibanye mines in the Free State."
However, global gold prices have soared during the pandemic — topping $2,000/oz for the first time — as traders look for secure investment options amid economic uncertainty.
[The illegal syndicates] were providing food parcels, they were stocking libraries, stocking and clinics, removing waste and providing water tanks. They were seen as bringing benefits to the community
— Nash Lutchman
There are concerns that, as a result, syndicates are now on a recruiting drive to send more illegal miners underground. According to Lutchman, Sibanye last month thwarted an attempt to get 15 or 18 zama zamas underground at its Driefontein mine.
"There are greater numbers; they are more brazen; so what we are thinking is that the prices at the moment mean the syndicates are trying to get more people [to work] to get more product on the market," he says.
Analysts generally expect gold prices to remain robust for the rest of the year and beyond, so the profit incentive is likely to remain strong. This, at a time when SA’s expanded unemployment rate (including those not looking for work) has soared to more than 40%.
"We prevent an attempt this week, and next week they try again," says Lutchman.
Should SA witness a surge in illegal mining, the mixture of community support, closed, dormant and vacant mine shafts, and corruption — along with a lack of state capacity and of the political will to act on illegal mining — will make it difficult for the sector to roll back the tide.
*The Global Initiative is a network of more than 500 experts on organised crime drawn from law enforcement, academia, conservation, technology, media, the private sector and development agencies. It publishes research and analysis on emerging criminal threats and works to develop innovative strategies to counter organised crime globally
Criminal networks involved in illegal mining have exploited the decline in the state’s law-enforcement capacity and the rise in corruption
— What it means:
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