As gold prices surge, West Africa mine operators launch drones to detect wildcat miners

By Maxwell Akalaare Adombila

TARKWA, Ghana (Reuters) -As the afternoon sun beats down on Gold Fields' sprawling Tarkwa gold mine in southwestern Ghana, three men launch a drone into the clear sky, its cameras scanning the lush 210-square-kilometer tract for intruders.

The drone spotted something unusual, and within 20 minutes a 15-person team including armed police arrived on the scene. They discovered abandoned clothing, freshly dug trenches, and rudimentary equipment amid pools of mercury and cyanide-contaminated water. The equipment was left behind by so-called wildcat miners, who operate on the outskirts of many of the continent’s official mining ventures - putting at risk their own health, the environment and the official mine operator's profits.

The team confiscated seven diesel-powered water pumps and a "chanfan" processing unit used to extract gold from riverbeds. 

The high-tech cat-and-mouse game is playing out with increasing frequency as record gold prices, now sitting above $3,300 per ounce, draw more unofficial activity - intensifying sometimes deadly confrontations between corporate concessions and artisanal miners in West Africa, according to dozens of mining executives and industry experts interviewed by Reuters.

"Because of the vegetation cover, if you don't have eyes in the air, you won't know something destructive is happening," explains Edwin Asare, Gold Fields Tarkwa Mine's head of protection services. "It's like you first get eyes in the sky to help you put boots on the ground.”

Almost 20 illicit miners have been killed in confrontations at major mining operations across the region since late 2024, including at Newmont and AngloGold Ashanti's sites in Ghana and Guinea and Nordgold's Bissa Mine in Burkina Faso.

There have been no reports of official mine staff injured. In some cases, clashes at corporate mines caused production halts of up to a month, prompting companies to press governments for more military protection.

'BOOTS ON THE GROUND'

Sub-Saharan Africa's unofficial mining operations provide critical income for nearly 10 million people, according to a May United Nations report. 

In West Africa, three to five million people depend on unregulated mining, accounting for approximately 30% of its gold production, other industry data show, serving as economic lifelines in a region with few formal employment opportunities. 

Like 52-year old Famanson Keita in Senegal's gold-rich Kedougou region, many inhabitants grew up mining gold in their localities. With simple and traditional methods, they earned extra incomes to supplement those from farming until corporate miners arrived, relocating them from their communities and promising jobs and rapid development. 

"Those promises have not been fulfilled," said Keita. "Many of our young people are employed in low-level, uncontracted jobs with little pay and no stability. Small-scale farming alone cannot sustain our families." 

While local residents have long tried to eke out a living on the margins of corporate mines, much of the illicit activity, particularly in the region’s forests and large bodies of water, is now conducted with sophisticated digging and dredging equipment and funding from local cartels and foreigners, including from China.

ECONOMIC PRESSURES

With rising central bank gold buying and broader geopolitical tensions potentially pushing gold to $5,000 an ounce, Sahel-focused security and mining analyst Ulf Laessing warned that more violent confrontations around mining operations could be expected in the coming months.

"The more the gold price rises, the more conflicts we will see between industrial and informal miners," said Laessing, head of the Sahel program at Germany's Konrad Adenauer Foundation.

Nine wildcat miners were shot dead in January at AGA's Obuasi mine in Ghana when they cut open the fenced 110-square kilometer concession to scavenge gold, according to a source in the company who asked not to be identified.

At AGA's Siguiri Mine, northeast of Guinea, hundreds of wildcat miners invaded the concession in February, prompting military intervention, according to a source familiar with the mine's operations.

At least three wildcat miners were shot by guards while others were injured at Newmont’s Ahafo gold mining site in northwestern Ghana in January, police said. 

In Mali's gold-rich Kayes region, an excavator operator at an illegal mining site in Kenieba told Reuters that operations have expanded rapidly this year, with Chinese bosses deploying more equipment to new sites as gold prices climb. Reuters could not establish who such Chinese operators were, or whether they have any links to companies or official organizations.

This year, Ghanaian authorities have been ransacking dozens of informal mining sites, arresting hundreds of locals and foreigners, particularly Chinese nationals, who operate unregulated gold operations in the country's vast forests, including protected areas and bodies of water.

"Because of porous borders and weak regulations, the majority of their produce is smuggled," says Marc Ummel, researcher at Swissaid, "depriving the countries of the full benefits." Ghana lost more than 229 metric tons of largely artisanal gold to smuggling between 2019 and 2023, according to Swissaid, which analysed export data within the period. 

Adama Soro, president of the West African Federation of Chambers of Mines, said artisanal miners also compete with large-scale miners for ore, shortening mines' lives. "We're seeing artisanal miners digging up to 100 meters and impacting the ore body of the big miners, so we're losing money," he said.

ARMED MILITARY PROTECTION

Miners are resorting to unconventional methods and increased spending at the expense of investment and community projects, said the head of a mining company in Ghana heavily affected by wildcat miners.

The mine spends approximately half a million dollars annually on measures, including drone surveillance to combat wildcat mining, but still experiences frequent attacks, the source said.

Nordgold, Galiano Gold, B2Gold and Barrick Gold have all seen incursions recently.

Ghana's major corporate miners have intensified their campaign for military protection at mining sites this year. Similar requests have been made in Burkina Faso and Mali, according to three mining executives and an industry analyst, who requested anonymity.

"Ideally, we want military presence at all mining operations, but we understand the need to prioritize sites facing consistent attacks while implementing regular patrols at others," said Ahmed Dasana Nantogmah, chief operating officer of Ghana's Chamber of Mines.

Industry leaders met government officials in mid-April to press their case, with discussions yielding "positive" results, said Nantogmah.

Ghana's government did not respond to requests for comment.

Ghanaian authorities want miners to cover deployment costs, estimated at 250,000 Ghana cedis ($18,116) per contingent daily of under 50 personnel, said two mining executives who were part of the negotiations. 

Ghana's mining sector regulator, the Minerals Commission, is taking a technological leap forward, establishing an AI-powered control room to analyze data from 28 drones deployed to illegal mining hotspots. The system includes trackers on the excavators and a control system that can remotely disable excavators operating outside authorized boundaries.

"This is a fight we can win with technology if we allow full deployment," says Sylvester Akpah, consultant for Ghana's mining sector regulator's drone surveillance and AI-powered project.

(Reporting by Maxwell Akalaare Adombila Additional reporting by Emmanuel Bruce Editing by Veronica Brown and Claudia Parsons)