Gangs diversify, target gold smelting plants
Large numbers of well-armed thieves are raiding mining facilities
New information released by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime gives startling insights into armed robberies at SA's gold smelting facilities.
In its latest risk bulletin, the organisation explains how heists targeting smelters have escalated rapidly since 2018, though they showed a decline in 2020.
According to the Global Initiative researchers, gangs are armed with automatic assault rifles, with 15 to 30 gunmen typically involved in an attack. Seemingly, these groups will pursue every avenue to ensure they come away with the loot, including cutting power to render CCTV cameras useless, taking hostages and the use of explosives.
Even unsuccessful attacks may be an indication of a highly tactical approach, the organisation says.
Some of the attacks are done to test the security, “to see how the mine security reacts and the timing of their response,” Louis Nel, a mine security consultant, said.
"There is a reason behind their madness. They will launch an attack and if they fail in their objective, then months later the successful one will happen.”
There were 19 attacks on SA gold facilities in 2019, according to records from the Minerals Council SA, though researchers believe this figure could be higher as companies sometimes do not report these crimes. In December 2019, Gold Fields's South
Deep mine in Gauteng was targeted by 15 armed men who stormed the operation and made off with gold worth about US$500,000 (R7.5m).
"Gold Fields spokesperson Sven Lunsche said the company had subsequently put in place additional security measures at a cost of about US$2m [R30m]," the report says.
"Harmony Gold says that two suspects were arrested in connection with a heist at its Kalgold mine in December 2019. The scarcity of arrests poses a problem for law enforcement, as intelligence gathered from arrests may help thwart other attacks. However, mining executives and security personnel believe the police forces in mining areas are compromised.
"Collusion includes tipping off illegal miners and the heist gangs to intelligence developments, turning a blind eye to their activities, losing dockets so cases are thrown out and failing to act on information that could lead to arrests.”
The increase in such heists is attributed to several factors, including gold prices rising by more than 17% over the course of 2018 and 2019. Simultaneously there was a decline in hits on cash-in-transit vehicles. There was improved security co-operation between businesses and new technologies that coated the vault of the vehicle with a fast-drying foam during an attack.
“Security experts believe that some of the cash-in-transit heist gangs subsequently turned their attention to gold. The same weapons are used in both kinds of heists [including the use of explosives to blow vaults open].”
One mine security expert told Global Initiative he suspected the gangs had been involved in bank robberies, but the "huge" increase in security at banks — from CCTV cameras and increased security staff to marked notes and other initiatives — had gradually cut off that once-lucrative revenue stream.
Another reason the attacks on smelters had spiked was because there had been a crackdown on illegal miners, or zama-zamas , who then pivoted to smelter heists.
Another security official believed the gangs were diversifying.
"Twenty years ago a gang would target gold or diamonds but now they are involved in different commodities and different areas.”
There were now links between several illicit-commodity trades including gold, chrome, copper and rhino horn.
The researchers found that gold flows through the same laundering channels ”, with Dubai, India and China the main destinations.
"They take the concentrate, they process it to gold and then sell it through the normal channels, the same ones that the zamas use,” Nel said. These channels include secondhand jewellery shops and gold dealers.
But since the national lockdown was implemented in March, gold heist activity eased.
"Interestingly, cash-in-transit heists spiked again from July to October, according to data shared by the South African Banking Risk Information Centre,” the researchers said.
“Whereas between March and June cashin-transit heists declined compared to 2019, from July there was a 69% increase compared to July 2019, which rose to a 122% increase on the previous year in the October 1-23 period.
"The increase was particularly marked in Gauteng, where 102 incidents were reported compared, to 53 in 2019, a 92% increase.”
In terms of gold attacks, only three were reported this year.
"But with the gold price near record highs — hitting over $2,000 [about R30,000] an ounce in August 2020 — there are concerns that attacks on gold facilities could spike again, once the heist gangs figure out how to bypass the new security measures.”