Police Minister Bheki Cele said on Thursday that the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation (the Hawks) is looking at illegal mining as a form of economic sabotage and is working to find those exacerbating it.

Cele was speaking during a Ministerial Briefing Session on illegal mining, where he said the Hawks’ ongoing investigations are hoping to discover who consumes the gold mined in the illegal mining trade, which Mineral Resources Minister Gwede Mantashe said might be costing the country about R41-billion.

Last month, a group of men and women shooting a music video at a disused mine near Krugersdorp were attacked by armed assailants, who gang-raped eight of the women.

Cele said the attack at the mine heightened understanding of and public noise around the issue of illegal miners, known as Zama Zamas.

Cele revealed that about 350 illegal miners have so far been arrested, almost all are foreign nationals from Lesotho, Zimbabwe, Malawi and Mozambique.

He said the South African Police Service (Saps) is still working on the DNA to link suspects to the rape of the women.

“But the main story remains those people that have attacked, raped, abused and hurt the crew that was recording a music video. Chairperson, we are glad to report that we have covered some grounds on that, yesterday seven of these people were charged by the court of law for rape, robbery and some stuff has been found on them. Today, another seven are charged, so there are 14 altogether that have been charged now,” Cele reported.

He noted that some communities have tried to take the law into their own hands, especially in Kagiso, West Village, Mohlakeng in Randfontein and in Bekkersdal and he added that police, private security and the metro police have worked closely with communities.

BIG NOISE

Meanwhile, Mantashe said his department has allocated R140-million a year to close openpits which are being exploited by illegal miners.

“At the rate we are going, it is going to take us 17 years to close the holes,” he said.

Mantashe said illegal mining has been taking place in other provinces, besides Gauteng, but less noise was made over those.

“There has been series of deaths in Orkney [in the North West]. A month ago, 95 illegal miners were trapped underground in Orkney and five died in this incident. There was no big noise,” he said.

He added that illegal mining is a form of economic sabotage which wages war on the economy. Therefore, he said, it requires a specialised unit to treat it as such.