The South African Federation of Trade Unions (SAFTU) welcomes the arrest of two senior police officials and a civilian allegedly linked to the illegal dealing and unlawful possession of precious metals.
These arrests vindicate what SAFTU and many communities have consistently argued: the illicit economy in South Africa cannot operate on the scale it does without sections of law enforcement, state officials, corrupt business networks, smugglers, buyers, transporters, and international syndicates working together.
The illegal precious metals economy is not a small criminal side activity. Estimates have placed the illicit precious metals and illegal mining economy at tens of billions of rand annually. Reuters earlier this year reported estimates that the illicit precious metals trade alone may be worth as much as R60 billion a year.
This confirms that the problem goes far beyond desperate underground miners. The real beneficiaries are organised criminal syndicates, corrupt officials, formal smelters, financiers, exporters, and international buyers who profit from stolen mineral wealth while communities are terrorised.
For years, mining communities have complained that both informal and formal mining operations use explosives and conduct blasting dangerously close to homes and communities, damaging houses, threatening lives, and forcing poor families to abandon their properties. Yet communities repeatedly experience indifference, delayed action, or outright protection of powerful interests.
These arrests expose the dangerous myth that illegal mining survives merely because of undocumented migrant labour. Illegal mining is a highly organised criminal value chain stretching from thousands of abandoned and unsealed mine shafts to buyers, transporters, formal refining systems, and international illicit traders.
South Africa reportedly has more than 6,000 abandoned or ownerless mines. The illicit trade cannot move gold and precious metals from underground tunnels to international markets without protection, coordination, corruption, money laundering networks, and buyers operating far above the level of desperate workers underground.
SAFTU further notes the deeply troubling developments around Stilfontein, where police previously announced the arrest of an alleged “kingpin” linked to illegal mining syndicates, only for that suspect reportedly to disappear while in police custody or under police control. Such incidents further deepen public suspicion that sections of the criminal justice system are compromised.
The country must stop scapegoating only poor undocumented migrants while leaving untouched the recruiters, financiers, smelters, exporters, corrupt police officers, politically connected syndicates, and wealthy tycoons who make billions from the illicit economy.
If government is serious about ending illegal mining and illicit precious metals trading, it must: Aggressively prosecute corrupt police officers, immigration officials, politicians, and businesspeople linked to syndicates; target the financiers, smugglers, processors, exporters, and international buyers of stolen minerals; seal and rehabilitate abandoned mines urgently; protect communities affected by unsafe blasting, criminal violence, and environmental destruction; strengthen cross-border cooperation against organized criminal syndicates; and tackle the poverty, unemployment, and social collapse that make vulnerable workers exploitable by criminal networks.
SAFTU reiterates that working-class communities, whether South African or migrant, are often victims of criminal syndicates, corruption, state failure, and economic desperation. The fight must target the criminal networks and those enriching themselves from mineral theft, not simply the most vulnerable people at the bottom of the chain.
A statement was issued on behalf of SAFTU by the General Secretary, Zwelinzima Vavi.
For media inquiries, contact the National
Spokesperson:
Newton Masuku
newtonm@saftu.org.za
0661682157
Media Officer:
Asive Dyani
0719019564
