Police foil $30M robbery at gold mine

Tanzanian police have foiled a $30.6-million bullion robbery, which would have rivalled some of the biggest heists in modern history.

In the latest security incident to hit the country’s miners, five masked men raided an airstrip owned by South African group Anglogold Ashanti.

The heavily armed men emerged from a nearby forest and attempted to steal 587 kilograms of gold bars from an airplane at the group’s Geita mine, it was reported.

The attack was thwarted by police from Mwanza, on the shores of Lake Victoria.

“Incidents such as these are usually carried out by a syndicate and also involve somebody from the inside who told the robbers that a plane usually flies from the airstrip every Thursday with gold bars,” Deusdedit Nsimeki, Mwanza’s regional crimes officer, said.

“The robbers, who wore militarystyle clothing, had sub-machine guns and hand grenades. They were trying to steal a cargo of gold bars weighing some 586.6 kilos, which is worth billions of shillings,” Nsimeki added.

Raids on gold mines are not uncommon in Tanzania. In May last year, seven “criminal intruders” were killed at one of African Barrick Gold’s mines in the north of the country. It was estimated that 1,500 people took part in that raid, attacking the local police with machetes, rocks and hammers.

As a result, African Barrick said in October that it planned to build a 14-kilometre-long wall around its North Mara mine to prevent any future incursions.

Police said one of Anglogold’s expatriate workers suffered minor bullet wounds in the latest robbery attempt. One of the robbers was killed.

The Geita mine is the largest producing mine in Tanzania.