Police action, policy responses‘misguided’
Illegal mining in South Africa is artisanal mining within large-scale mines, not separate from them, according to a report by Enhancing Africa’s Response to Transnational Organised Crime (Enact).
Enact is linked to the Institute for Security Studies and Interpol, with the Global Initiative against Transnational Organised Crime.
It found that current enforcement and policy responses, which criminalise artisanal miners, “are misguided, counterproductive and ignore the poverty and socioeconomic drivers behind the phenomenon”. A more holistic, nuanced and multi-faceted approach is required from government and industry to address the lack of formalisation and the marginalisation of the illegal artisanal mining sector.
In South Africa, “Zama zamas are exposed to extortion, murder, forced migration, money laundering, corruption, racketeering, drugs and prostitution,” it said.
“The criminal motives of desperate and destitute illegal miners are vastly different from the motives of those higher up the syndicate ladder.”
It described how sophisticated criminal syndicates, for whom the miners are forced to work, perpetrate much of the worst criminality — violence, corruption, human smuggling, tax evasion and money laundering.
“Criminalising, demonising and scapegoating illegal (and mostly foreign) miners is an easy deflection away from more difficult discussions of uncomfortable truths about the persistent poverty, poor service delivery in marginalised areas and political instability in neighbouring countries that contribute to men becoming zama zamas in the first place,” according to the report.
It describes a five-tier crime syndicate hierarchy: individual miners; gangs and illegal mining bosses; bulk buyers at national and regional levels in the form of licensed or registered entities; front company exporters; and international intermediary companies and buyers.
“Zama zamas (level one), who are at the very bottom of the pyramid, are the most visible and precariously placed. They are generally recruited by ‘level twos’ in their home countries and often only learn the job is illegal when they arrive in South Africa.”
Any loans to purchase equipment such as head lamps, knee pads, rubber boots or pickaxes are deducted
from their earnings. Food and drink provided during the miners’ stay underground (sometimes as long as six months) are sold at extortionate prices, the report said.
Level twos are the link between the zama zamas and the more established criminal syndicates (level threes). “It is they who buy the gold ... Level twos enforce discipline and ensure production quotas are met and it is they who defend their turf violently from rival syndicates, mine security and, sometimes, the police.”
The level threes are established members of the underworld; licensed scrap-metal dealers or pawnshop owners or jewellers,
whose occupations give them the legal right to possess and process gold. “It is they who launder the illicit gold into the legal supply chain.”
Level fours export the illegally procured gold, generally to the United Arab Emirates and Switzerland, and the level fives are international buyers. Those in levels four and five frequently operate from outside South Africa, beyond the reach of law enforcement agencies.
The report describes how illegal mining in South Africa is among the most lucrative on the continent, with lost production exceeding R14-billion a year.—