Police Operation Vala Umgodi arrested 82 suspects for illegal mining countrywide in one week from December 9 to 15.
Forty-two of the arrests were made in the North West alone.
This was revealed by national police spokesperson Lt-Col Vincent Mukhathi on Monday.
Last Wednesday, the Stilfontein Magistrate’s Court in North West sentenced 19 people for illegal mining and contravention of the Immigration Act.
Illegal miners’ sentences suspended
North West police spokesperson Brig Sabata Mokgwabone said among the 19 were 14 Lesotho nationals, four Mozambicans, and one undocumented Zimbabwean.
Mokgwabone said the convicts are aged between 20 and 40 years.
He said all were sentenced to 24 months in prison suspended for five years if they are not convicted for the same offence during the suspension.
Each was further sentenced to six months in jail or fined R6 000. This again was suspended for five years with the same condition.
Mokgwabone said the 19 convicts were arrested in November when they exited the Margaret Shaft of the old and abandoned Buffelsfontein gold mine in Stilfontein, North West.
Home Affairs processing deportations
The Department of Home Affairs is currently processing the convicts for deportation, he added.
Hundreds of illegal miners remain holed up underground in the abandoned Buffelsfontein gold mine. Residents of Khuma in Stilfontein have been providing them with food and water.
Recently, the Pretoria High Court ruled that the illegal miners still underground in the various disused mines must not be fed over the weekend.
The court ordered that food and water can only be supplied from Monday to Friday between 8am and 4pm. It said none will be provided over the weekend.
Court stops supply of fuel
The court also prohibited the provision of hazardous substances such as paraffin, gas, and diesel to the illegal miners.
National police spokesperson Brig Athlenda Mathe said police monitored what residents took down but were not party to the effort.
Police Operation Vala Umgodi began in December 2023 and has arrested 13 691 people for illegal mining in seven provinces since.
She said police have also seized R5 million in cash and uncut diamonds worth R32 million in the process. The majority of the arrested are South Africans, Mozambicans, and Basotho nationals.
