{"id":291792,"date":"2018-12-30T07:59:53","date_gmt":"2018-12-30T05:59:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=291792"},"modified":"2018-12-30T07:59:53","modified_gmt":"2018-12-30T05:59:53","slug":"criminals-make-off-with-billions-in-modern-day-gold-rush-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/291792\/criminals-make-off-with-billions-in-modern-day-gold-rush-report\/","title":{"rendered":"Criminals make off with billions in modern-day gold rush: report"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Tons of illicit gold was shipped out of South Africa at the height of state capture.<\/p>\n<p>According to a report by the <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.timeslive.co.za\/sunday-times\/news\/2018-12-30-great-mine-heist-sa-gold--looted---on--industrial-scale\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Sunday Times<\/a><\/strong>, a modern-day gold rush believed to be driven by organised crime syndicates saw the sale of 34 tons of gold to Dubai between 2011 and 2016.<\/p>\n<p>However, this gold is not reflected in South Africa\u2019s trading accounts, with research suggesting that illegal gold mining now costs the fiscus more than R14 billion a year.<\/p>\n<p>According to researchers from\u00a0the Global Initiative (GI) and Oxfam, this trade is being\u00a0driven by rising commodity prices and the closure of Sars\u2019 illicit economy team.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking to the Sunday Times, Ebrahim Kadwa, head of the Hawks\u2019 serious organised crime unit, said illegal mining had reached a point where it threatened SA\u2019s economy.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Syndicates smuggle gold through front companies like scrap-metal and second-hand goods dealers, melting it down with stolen jewellery and laundering it through jewellery markets in Dubai and India,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>Oxfam mining expert, Thembinkosi Dlamini noted that Sars\u2019 capacity to deal with illicit financial flows was decimated through political interference, and the mineral resources department was unable to recruit or retain the skills needed for monitoring.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The government simply doesn\u2019t know who is taking what from the ground,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Read:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/290072\/south-african-gold-industry-enters-final-phase-of-slow-death\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">South African gold industry enters final phase of slow death<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ebrahim Kadwa, head of the Hawks\u2019 serious organised crime unit, said illegal mining had reached a point where it threatened SA\u2019s economy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":66120,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-291792","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291792","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=291792"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291792\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":291802,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291792\/revisions\/291802"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66120"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=291792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=291792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=291792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}