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The illegal gold rush sweeping the world
Maybe someday the Financial Times will report in just as much depth about the legal gold rush sweeping the world and the causes and players behind it, and particularly the players opposing it through market interventions.
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By Michael Pooler, Joe Daniels, Aanu Adeoye, Monica Mark, Chloe Cornish, and Leslie Hook
Financial Times, London
Wednesday, August 20, 2025
As global gold prices took off, residents of Stilfontein, a sleepy South African town surrounded by abandoned shafts from the country's mining heyday, began noticing some intimidating newcomers.
"We see their cars loaded with guns and equipment," one store owner said of the armed criminals who began frequenting Stilfontein's hardware shops. "They're not from here. They just come for a few days and then disappear again."
... Dispatch continues below ...
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The gangsters were there to profit from a brutal but thriving underground economy, in which thousands of impoverished wildcat miners are put to work deep in South Africa's disused mines -- once among the world's most profitable -- while criminals battle for control.
"There are mini-wars happening underground," said Louis Nel, a South African mining security consultant. "They fight with each other, they use improvised explosive devices."
This is the dark side of the 21st-century gold rush, as organised crime groups from across sub-Saharan Africa to south-east Asia and the depths of the Amazon pile into illicit mining to feed one of the most lucrative trades of recent years. ...
... For the remainder of the report:
https://www.ft.com/content/cc4f6203-4d78-4b1d-a431-82d0e10e7c47
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