South Africa’s chrome riches fuel a deadly underground economy

Behind South Africa’s chrome riches lies a shadow economy where migrants and unemployed workers face deadly conditions.

Illegal chrome miners work at a mining site near Rustenburg in South Africa’s North West province [Tsitsi Bhobo/Al Jazeera]

Rustenburg, South Africa – On August 13, a wall of soil collapsed and killed 14 miners, most of whom were believed to be undocumented migrants, at a disused mining site near Nkaneng, an informal settlement outside Rustenburg in South Africa’s mineral-rich North West province.

“It happened in a flash, and the earth swallowed a dozen,” Lerothodi Nale*, a migrant from Lesotho who escaped the collapse and ran to alert nearby security guards, told Al Jazeera.

Without a passport, Nale left the scene afterwards, fearing arrest. More miners could still be trapped underground, North West police commissioner Lieutenant-General Arthur Adams told journalists, including Al Jazeera.

The disaster has exposed a darker side of South Africa’s chrome wealth: an underground economy where vulnerable migrants, unemployed former mineworker and criminal groups converge around a lucrative mineral trade.

Rustenburg sits above the Bushveld Igneous Complex, one of the world’s richest geological formations, containing vast deposits of platinum-group metals and chrome. The region’s minerals have long powered industries including stainless steel production and advanced industrial applications.

South Africa is the world’s largest chrome producer and exporter, with much of its ore feeding global supply chains, particularly China’s stainless steel industry.

An illegal chrome-washing plant operates near Nkaneng, an informal settlement outside Rustenburg in South Africa’s North West province [Tsitsi Bhobo/Al Jazeera]

But alongside the formal mining sector, illegal extraction has expanded in parts of the country, including North West province, where authorities have raised concerns about unauthorised mining operations, environmental destruction and criminal groups exploiting abandoned and inactive mine sites.

For migrants like Nale, these abandoned pits offer both opportunity and danger.

“The disused mines are sitting graves with no geologists to confirm if rocks are still stable down there,” said metals governance expert Tapuwa Nhachi.

South Africa’s government has announced programmes to rehabilitate abandoned mines and close dangerous shafts, but critics say the scale of the response remains far below the challenge facing the country. Thousands of abandoned mine shafts remain across South Africa, creating opportunities for illegal operators and exposing workers to deadly conditions.

“Not a month goes without fatalities in abandoned mine holes,” Nhachi told Al Jazeera.

Chrome is attractive to illegal operators because deposits can often be reached closer to the surface, lowering extraction costs compared with deeper underground mining.

“For criminal networks, it becomes easier to extract, process and move the ore into supply chains,” environmental remediation expert Shamiso Mupara told Al Jazeera.

The result is an economy where profits are concentrated among those controlling equipment, transport routes and access to buyers, while miners take the greatest risks.

The underground pipeline

Nale describes a system that begins far beyond South Africa’s borders.

Undocumented migrants from Lesotho, Zimbabwe and Mozambique, alongside unemployed South Africans including former mineworker, are recruited by intermediaries who provide transport money and promise work around Rustenburg’s chrome fields.

On arrival, Nale said, workers are divided into groups controlled by criminal networks that provide food, mining equipment and, he alleges, explosives before sending them underground.

“At this juncture, we are held hostage by the alleged Maresha cartel, which, he says, takes 70 percent of our earnings and forces us to work in unsafe mines until we repay debts,” he said.

Nale alleges that miners can be transferred between groups and forced to continue working underground until additional ore is extracted.

The existence and scale of individual criminal groups involved in illegal mining are difficult to independently verify, but South African authorities have repeatedly linked illegal mining to organised crime, including violence, weapons trafficking and illicit financial networks.

Loren Landau, a migration expert at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, said the combination of poverty, unemployment and weak enforcement has created a steady supply of vulnerable workers.

“The pipeline sending scores of young male migrants to subterranean death does not pause because there are few viable job options left,” he told Al Jazeera.

“As soon as this batch of miners dies or gets injured, more destitute men are on the bus to replace them.”

A regional poverty trap

At the gates of Marikana police station, which serves Nkaneng, Dineo Motho, 29, waited for news about her husband, Kgadi Ntuli, 35, who remained missing after the collapse.

Wrapped in a traditional Lesotho blanket against the winter cold, she had travelled about 400 kilometres (250 miles) overnight to South Africa after hearing about the disaster.

“He left home in January to try his luck in Rustenburg chrome pits because with drying lands in Lesotho, there was no water to nourish our goats, crops or fruits. There were no jobs, no food,” she told Al Jazeera.

Ntuli had been travelling between Lesotho and South Africa’s chrome fields, she said, earning enough money to support the family.

Her greatest hope was that he was among those who survived the collapse, but fled afterwards to avoid arrest.

For families like hers, survival itself can mean disappearing from authorities.

Economic hardship and worsening environmental pressures in parts of Southern African have increased vulnerability, pushing some people towards dangerous informal work.

Illegal chrome processors handle ore at a site near Rustenburg in South Africa’s North West province [Tsitsi Bhobo/Al Jazeera]

The consequences are increasingly visible in communities surrounding South Africa’s mining zones.

Mmanotshe Ramokoka, traditional leader of the Baphalane Traditional Council in North West province, said illegal mining has damaged farmland, threatened water supplies and created conflict between communities and criminal groups.

“It’s an ecological warzone,” he told Al Jazeera.

He said illegal processing sites have appeared near farming areas, with open pits endangering livestock and waste affecting local environments.

“The gangs have millions to rent industrial equipment for stripping soil for chrome. Migrant diggers die for a tiny fraction of the profit,” Ramokoka said.

The battle moves underground

For years, illegal mining in South Africa was associated mainly with abandoned gold mines around Gauteng province, where informal miners known as zama zamas operated in old underground shafts.

But some experts and community leaders say pressure from the government’s Operation Vala Umgodi (“seal the mine holes” in isiZulu), launched in 2023 to target illegal mining, has encouraged some criminal operators to adapt and seek opportunities elsewhere. Authorities have described the operation as a nationwide effort to combat illegal mining and associated criminal activity.

Some miners now appear to be moving towards less-monitored chrome-producing areas in North West province.

The police have rejected allegations of widespread complicity and say they are taking action against illegal mining networks.

In a statement to media outlets including Al Jazeera, Lieutenant-Colonel Tinyiko Mathebula of the Hawks, the South African Police Service’s specialised organised crime unit, said 23 illegal mining cases had been registered in the Rustenburg area over the past two years, with 63 accused charged.

He added that police had seized 20 trucks and 15 excavators linked to illegal mining activities.

But enforcement alone may not end the cycle.

As long as poverty pushes workers towards dangerous pits and criminal groups control access to chrome wealth, the cycle is likely to continue.

“Nothing scares the hungry,” Landau said.

*Nale changed his surname to speak freely and avoid possible arrest.

南非丰富的铬矿资源背后隐藏着一个庞大的影子经济，移民和失业工人在那里面临着极其危险的生存环境。

在南非西北省鲁斯滕堡附近的一个矿场，非法铬矿工人正在作业。[Tsitsi Bhobo/半岛电视台]

南非鲁斯滕堡——8 月 13 日，在南非矿产资源丰富的西北省鲁斯滕堡郊外的非正式定居点恩卡嫩附近的一处废弃矿场，一堵土墙倒塌，造成 14 名矿工死亡，其中大多数据信是无证移民。

“一切发生得太快了，泥土吞噬了十几个人，”来自莱索托的移民莱罗托迪·纳勒*告诉半岛电视台。他从坍塌中逃了出来，跑去通知附近的保安人员。

由于没有护照，纳勒事后担心被捕，便离开了现场。西北省警察局长亚瑟·亚当斯中将告诉包括半岛电视台在内的记者，可能还有更多矿工被困在井下。

这场灾难暴露了南非铬矿财富的阴暗面：一个地下经济，其中脆弱的移民、失业的前矿工和犯罪集团聚集在一起，进行利润丰厚的矿产贸易。

勒斯滕堡坐落在布什维尔德火成岩杂岩体之上，该杂岩体是世界上最富饶的地质构造之一，蕴藏着丰富的铂族金属和铬矿藏。该地区的矿产资源长期以来为包括不锈钢生产和先进工业应用在内的众多行业提供动力。

南非是世界上最大的铬生产国和出口国，其大部分铬矿石供应全球供应链，特别是中国的不锈钢行业。

在南非西北省鲁斯滕堡郊外的非正式定居点恩卡嫩附近，一家非法洗铬厂正在运营。[Tsitsi Bhobo/半岛电视台]

但除了正规采矿业之外，非法采矿活动也在该国部分地区蔓延，包括西北省。当地政府对未经授权的采矿作业、环境破坏以及犯罪团伙利用废弃和不活跃的矿场表示担忧。

对于像纳勒这样的移民来说，这些废弃的矿坑既带来了机遇，也带来了危险。

“废弃的矿井就像一座座坟墓，没有地质学家来确认下面的岩石是否仍然稳定，”金属治理专家塔普瓦·纳奇说道。

南非政府已宣布一系列计划，旨在修复废弃矿井并关闭危险矿井，但批评人士指出，目前的应对规模远不足以应对该国面临的挑战。南非各地仍有数千个废弃矿井，这不仅为非法经营者提供了可乘之机，也使工人身处险境。

“几乎每个月都会有人在废弃矿井中丧生，”纳奇告诉半岛电视台。

铬矿对非法开采者很有吸引力，因为矿藏通常更容易在地表附近开采，与更深的地下开采相比，开采成本更低。

“对于犯罪网络来说，提取、加工矿石并将其转移到供应链中变得更加容易，”环境修复专家沙米索·穆帕拉告诉半岛电视台。

其结果是，利润集中在控制设备、运输路线和买家渠道的人手中，而矿工承担着最大的风险。

地下管道

纳勒描述的这套体系，其起源远在南非国界之外。

来自莱索托、津巴布韦和莫桑比克的无证移民，以及包括前矿工在内的失业南非人，被中间人招募，这些中间人提供交通费，并承诺在勒斯滕堡的铬矿区附近提供工作。

纳勒说，工人们到达矿井后，会被分成若干小组，这些小组由犯罪网络控制，犯罪网络会提供食物、采矿设备，他还声称，还会提供炸药，然后把他们送到井下。

他说：“目前，我们被所谓的马雷沙卡特尔挟为人质，该卡特尔拿走了我们70%的收入，并强迫我们在不安全的矿井中工作，直到我们还清债务为止。”

纳尔声称，矿工可以在不同组别之间调动，并被迫继续在地下工作，直到开采出更多的矿石。

参与非法采矿的犯罪集团的存在和规模很难独立核实，但南非当局已多次将非法采矿与有组织犯罪联系起来，包括暴力、武器贩运和非法金融网络。

约翰内斯堡金山大学的移民专家洛伦·兰道表示，贫困、失业和执法不力等因素共同造成了大量弱势工人的持续涌入。

“这条将大量年轻男性移民送往地下送死的管道并没有因为剩下的工作机会不多而停止运转，”他告诉半岛电视台。

“这批矿工一旦死亡或受伤，就会有更多贫困潦倒的人坐上巴士来顶替他们。”

区域贫困陷阱

在为恩卡嫩镇服务的马里卡纳警察局门口，29 岁的迪内奥·莫托正在等待她 35 岁的丈夫卡迪·恩图利的消息，他在坍塌事故后仍然下落不明。

为了抵御莱索托的寒冬，她裹着一条传统的莱索托毯子，在听到灾难的消息后，连夜跋涉了约 400 公里（250 英里）来到南非。

她告诉半岛电视台：“他一月份离开家乡，去勒斯滕堡的铬矿碰碰运气，因为莱索托的土地干涸，没有水来养活我们的山羊、庄稼和水果。没有工作，也没有食物。”

她说，恩图利一直在莱索托和南非的铬矿区之间往返，挣钱养家糊口。

她最大的希望是他是在坍塌事故中幸存下来的人之一，但事后为了躲避逮捕而逃走了。

对于像她这样的家庭来说，生存本身就意味着从当局的视线中消失。

南部非洲部分地区的经济困难和日益恶化的环境压力加剧了脆弱性，迫使一些人从事危险的非正规工作。

在南非西北省鲁斯滕堡附近的一个地点，非法铬矿加工者正在处理矿石。[Tsitsi Bhobo/半岛电视台]

南非矿区周边社区越来越明显地感受到这些后果。

西北省巴法拉内传统委员会的传统领袖马诺特谢·拉莫科卡表示，非法采矿破坏了农田，威胁了供水，并在社区和犯罪集团之间造成了冲突。

“这里简直就是生态战区，”他告诉半岛电视台。

他表示，非法加工厂出现在农田附近，露天矿坑危及牲畜安全，废弃物影响当地环境。

“这些犯罪团伙有数百万美元可以租用工业设备来开采铬矿。而外来的矿工们为了微薄的利润却要付出生命的代价，”拉莫科卡说道。

战斗转移到了地下。

多年来，南非的非法采矿活动主要与豪登省周围的废弃金矿有关，被称为“zama zamas”的非正规矿工在旧地下矿井中作业。

但一些专家和社区领袖表示，政府于2023年启动的旨在打击非法采矿的“瓦拉·乌姆戈迪行动”（祖鲁语意为“封堵矿洞”）施加的压力，促使一些犯罪分子改变策略，另寻他处作案。当局称该行动是一项旨在打击非法采矿及相关犯罪活动的全国性行动。

现在一些矿工似乎正在向西北省监管较少的铬矿产区转移。

警方否认了有关普遍共谋的指控，并表示他们正在对非法采矿网络采取行动。

南非警察局专门打击有组织犯罪的“老鹰队”中校蒂尼科·马特布拉在向包括半岛电视台在内的媒体发表的声明中表示，过去两年里，鲁斯滕堡地区已登记了 23 起非法采矿案件，并指控了 63 名被告。

他还补充说，警方查获了与非法采矿活动有关的 20 辆卡车和 15 台挖掘机。

但仅靠执法可能无法终结这种恶性循环。

只要贫困迫使工人前往危险的矿井，只要犯罪集团控制着铬矿财富的获取，这种恶性循环就可能继续下去。

兰道说：“没有什么能吓倒饥饿的人。”

*纳尔改了姓，以便能自由发言并避免被捕。