South Africa’s chrome riches fuel a deadly underground economy

What the report says

A fatal collapse at a disused mining site near Nkaneng, outside Rustenburg in South Africa’s North West province, has drawn attention to the illegal chrome trade operating alongside the country’s formal mining sector. Al Jazeera reported that the August 13 accident killed 14 miners, many of them believed to be undocumented migrants, and may have left others trapped underground. The area sits in a mineral-rich region that produces chrome for domestic industry and global supply chains, especially stainless steel manufacturing.

The report describes an underground economy that pulls in migrants from Lesotho, Zimbabwe and Mozambique, as well as unemployed South Africans and former mineworkers. According to miners and experts cited by Al Jazeera, criminal intermediaries recruit workers with promises of income, then control access to equipment, food and transport while taking a large share of the ore’s value. The article says the work often takes place in abandoned shafts and unstable pits, where cave-ins, environmental damage and poor oversight create serious dangers.

Community leaders and specialists quoted in the piece say illegal mining has damaged farmland, threatened water sources and intensified conflict in surrounding communities. They also argue that poverty, weak enforcement and the closure or abandonment of mine sites have made it easier for criminal networks to expand. South African police said they have registered dozens of illegal mining cases in the Rustenburg area over the past two years and seized equipment linked to the activity, while the government’s anti-illegal-mining campaign has pushed some operators toward chrome-producing areas.