Hawks hot on the heels of mining companies that buy illegally-mined minerals

JOHANNESBURG - The Hawks say they are hot on the heels of mining companies that buy minerals that are illegally mined.

The Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation (DPCI) has a task team looking into buyers of illegally mined minerals.

It said there were instances where legal mines supplemented their stock with illegally mined goods. 

Illegal mining is a dangerous sector.

Illegal miners usually don't have the correct equipment and are not protected by company insurance should they get hurt while underground.

National head of the Hawks, Godfrey Lebeya, said that illegal miners would continue to risk their lives for as long as there were people willing to buy from them.

"Some of them do not always work according to the expectation that you must not be attracted to illegal activities, so they take this and mix with legitimate one that has been mined properly, so we are hinting on that one because we have effected arrests on some and are working on others."

Lebeya said that some of the biggest buyers of the country's illegally mined goods could be traced to the United Arab Emirates.