[imagesource:here]

Search ‘heist‘ on 2oceansvibe and you’ll find countless stories featuring videos of brazen cash-in-transit heists, with the odd jewellery store robbery thrown in for good measure.

What you won’t find are stories featuring armed robberies at some of South Africa’s gold smelting facilities, which are often carried out by an armed gang using sophisticated measures to breach security measures.

The attacks began in 2018, when there were five, with the following year seeing 19 attacks on gold facilities.

Those stats are via the Minerals Council SA, but attacks could well be underreported, for a variety of reasons.

Over the weekend, an excellent Financial Mail report took a closer look at the methods used by the gang, with most attacks featuring between 15 and 30 men armed with automatic assault rifles:

On March 10, 20 armed men stormed a gold plant 140km west of Joburg operated by Village Main Reef (VMR), a Chinese-owned mining company. After hijacking a front-end loader, the gang overturned an armoured vehicle and broke through the wall of a smelt house, then made off with an undisclosed amount of calcine, the gold-bearing material from which bars of bullion are processed, according to industry sources…

In the view of security analysts, the gangs’ methods — including cutting power to take out CCTV cameras, taking hostages and using explosives in some cases to blow through perimeter walls — suggest they have recruited former members of the police and armed forces, or ex-private security personnel.

Security experts point out that other attacks, whilst unsuccessful, are done to test security measures, before a follow-up attack is launched months down the line using information gleaned from the first time around.

One Joburg mining house security executive said they had fended off two unsuccessful attacks in 2019, with the second showing that the gang “had a better understanding of our reaction times”.

Several notable attacks in late 2019 resulted in mining companies bolstering their security to dissuade gangs.

In December, Gold Fields suffered an attack at its South Deep mine in Gauteng. Fifteen armed men stormed the operation and made off with gold worth about $500,000.

Gold Fields spokesperson Sven Lunsche says the company has subsequently put in place additional security measures at a cost of about R30m. Surveillance systems have also been upgraded.

During an attack on DRDGold last year, one employee was killed, and one arrest was made.

Two arrests were also made in connection with a heist at Harmony Gold’s Kalgold mine in the North West.

That dearth of arrests is worrying, and mining executives and security personnel say this is due, in part, to some police forces in mining areas being compromised:

Collusion, they say, 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.

“Getting intelligence from arrested suspects is … crucial to preventing such attacks,” says one mine security official. “Unfortunately, the cops often don’t know how to gather more intelligence or they don’t act on it.”

Gauteng is the hot spot, for obvious reasons, with attacks possibly linked to gangs who have pivoted from cash-in-transit heists and bank robberies due to increased security measures:

Once the gold, or gold concentrate, is stolen, it can be laundered through networks in Dubai, India, and China, or smuggled out through SA’s airports and shipping ports.

You can read the full Financial Mail report here.

[source:financialmail]