Hawks arrested 2 suspects for illegal mining and fraud

Mbasa Gqokoma
31 May 2015

The portfolio committee on Minerals Resources welcomed what it believes to be a breakthrough after a three-year intensive investigation into illegal mining syndicate.

Hawks arrested two suspects on Friday after raiding two houses at Kempton Park.

The Hawks reported to have confiscated illicitly mined gold and 3000 ID’s belonging to people who are already dead, pointing to fraud amounting to R400 million.

Portfolio chairperson Sahlulele Luzipo reiterated that mining as well as trading with mineral resources were strictly regulated activities in South Africa.

Luzipo says the first issue that was said as the committee is that “we welcome what we hope is finally a breakthrough in the problem that we have always been insisting on, which is the issue of illegal mining and we welcome the arrest, hopefully it will lead to a successful prosecution”.

“We have said as a committee in a quite number of occasions that to us it is not the foot soldiers who are on daily basis finding themselves being caught in the air”.

We have been always clear that there is a bigger syndicate behind this whole issue, Luzipo added.