The Democratic Republic of Congo’s Justice Minister Guillaume Ngefa has ordered judicial investigations into suspected mining fraud, illegal mining and mineral smuggling at sites in Lualaba and Haut-Katanga provinces, Bloomberg reported. The order follows operations by a joint task force of Congolese police, military personnel, military magistrates and mining ministry experts at several mining sites, including Menda.
Shanghai Metals Market, reporting the same statement, put the seizures at more than 500 trucks and other pieces of equipment alongside several thousand tonnes of copper and cobalt. The statement did not disclose the separate volumes of copper and cobalt, what form the material was in, or which companies were involved. The investigations are meant to establish the facts, identify criminal responsibility and determine legal action.
The probe is the latest step in a widening enforcement campaign in the copper belt. In October the mines minister suspended the head of SAEMAPE, the artisanal mining regulator, for failing to prevent illicit artisanal mining on permits held by other companies, and authorities detained about 300 Chinese nationals around Kolwezi as part of the same drive. A multi-agency commission has been working in Kolwezi to remove military personnel from mining sites, audit processing plants and move artisanal miners to authorised areas, and the government recently agreed to relocate more than 20,000 miners from Kamilombe, a site on a Gecamines licence, to a designated artisanal zone.
Jurisdiction watch: this is enforcement against illegal extraction inside licensed concessions, not a change to the mining code, royalty rates or licence terms, and no industrial operator has been accused in the statement. The exposure is operational rather than legal for now: CMOC, Glencore, Ivanhoe Mines, Zijin and Eurasian Resources Group are the major industrial producers in the two provinces, and artisanal incursions, site audits and relocations can interrupt feed and logistics even when the target is the informal sector. The Chinese embassy in Kinshasa issued a safety notice on October 31 saying large demonstrations around mining areas in the southeastern provinces had affected transport and business operations, a sign the crackdown is already being felt on the ground.