ZIMBABWE:Police in Zimbabwe have arrested 16,290 illegal miners - mostly gold panners - in a countrywide blitz that began just over a month ago, according to the official media.
More than three kilos of gold, about 470 tonnes of gold ore, 4,876 diamonds and 20 emeralds were recovered, police spokesman Oliver Mandipaka told The Herald, a government newspaper, yesterday.
During Zimbabwe's economic meltdown, illegal miners have swarmed into mining areas and rivers to pan for gold, causing siltation and severe environmental damage.
In recent weeks, troops were called in to seal off the Marange district in eastern Zimbabwe to stop a "diamond rush" after an earth tremor and dry weather exposed seams of industrial-quality diamonds.
The destination of the smuggled Marange diamonds, some of gem quality, was mostly neighbouring South Africa.
Mr Mandipaka said that many of the arrests were made near Zimbabwe's borders as illegal miners attempted to smuggle the precious minerals out of the country.
Under Zimbabwean law, minerals are sold through the state-controlled Minerals Marketing Corporation, often at depressed prices that have spurred black market dealing in illicit gold and stones.
Police last month acknowledged that some senior state and ruling party officials hired impoverished local villagers to pan for gold and diamonds. Penalties for illegal mining and smuggling are a fine or a jail term with recovered materials confiscated.
Zimbabwe is suffering its worst economic crisis since independence in 1980, blamed largely on the often-violent seizures of thousands of white-owned commercial farms since 2000 that disrupted the agriculture-based economy.
Official inflation is running at 1,090 per cent, the highest in the world.
Record unemployment has led to a steady increase in illegal mining. The nation is facing acute shortages of gasoline, hard currency, food and essential imports.
Formal mining has been hit by shortages of equipment and spare parts.
In September, the independent Chamber of Mines reported authorised gold mines produced about 13 tonnes of gold in the first nine months of the year, down from about 26 tonnes per annum a decade ago.
Long-time foreign investors in mining have also held back on upgrade projects after president Robert Mugabe earlier this year announced government plans to change mining laws and take a 51 per cent stake in mining operations.
Zimbabwe also mines tin, chrome, copper, iron and coal. It has southern Africa's largest deposits of high quality coal in the western Hwange district.