9 nine arrested precious metals

Right, let's focus our attention on this.

Now, yesterday there was news of the arrest of nine people who police say are involved in illegal activity around precious metals.

They were found to be trading, again, these are allegations, in unwrought gold dust and nuggets sourced from illegal miners.

It seems that they also were in possession of other metals.

Minerals including palladium, osmium, and certain machinery suggested that they were using this to process unroared gold, all of this without being legally entitled to do so.

Again, these are the matters that will be before the courts.

No convictions have arisen as yet.

The reason I'm interested in this story, though, is often when we do talk about action taken against illegal mining, many of you come in with, I think, the entirely valid point that Yes, you know, it's relatively easy, not to suggest this is simple, but the low-hanging fruit, let me put it this way, is arresting the people who are actually doing the mining.

But what about the people higher up the chain and the people who are actually funding and driving this thing which is causing so much harm in our country? Let's get the view then of David van Veek, who is a mining expert.

Mr. van Veek, welcome and thanks very much for giving us your time.

If it's found that these nine people, seven men and two women, were actually doing what they were doing, does this get us closer to the head of operations or do you think we're still down fairly low in the food chain? Good afternoon.