Three Chinese nationals have been arrested with 12 gold bars and$ 800, 000 ( £650, 000 ) in cash in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, officials say.
According to Jean Jacques Purusi, the governor of South Kivu state, the gold and money were hidden under the votes of the car they were driving in.
He claimed that the men’s arrest operation had been kept secret because another group of Chinese nationals had recently been released and are accused of operating an improper gold mine there.
There are a lot of silver, diamond, and metals in Eastern DR Congo that are used to make batteries for electric vehicles and mobile phones.
This nutrient wealth has been plunderered by international organizations since the colonial era, which is one of the major causes of the region’s ongoing instability for the past 30 years.
Many of the mine in eastern DR Congo are under the command of military organizations, and their leaders profit from selling them to middle-men.
According to Purusi, some of these precious metals sellers had close relationships with powerful people in Kinshasa, so the investigation into these most recent detention was kept under wraps.
He claimed that they had been acting on a tip-off and that the cash and silver had only been discovered after a thorough examination of the car in the Walungu region, which is close to Rwanda’s border.
The amount of silver seized was unknown, he claimed.
The government announced last month that he was shocked to learn that 17 Chinese nationals had been detained and given permission to travel back to China after being detained on suspicion of operating an unlawful gold mine.
He claimed that this hampered efforts to clean up DR Congo’s extremely dark mineral sector.
They owed$ 10m in fees and charges to the authorities, the Reuters news organization quotes him as saying.
The Chinese ambassador has not commented on the claims.
The arrests come as fighting continues to flare in the neighbouring North Kivu province, where a Rwanda-backed rebel group has captured large areas of territory.
Last month, DR Congo said it was suing Apple over the use of “blood minerals”, prompting the tech giant to say it had stopped getting supplies from both DR Congo and neighbouring Rwanda.
Rwanda has disputed that it is a stooge for the illegal vitamins trade from the DR Congo.
Lawyers for the Congolese government argued in their lawsuit that minerals from conflict areas were finally “laundered through global supply chains.”
They claimed that these activities have contributed to forced child labor and environmental destruction and have fueled a pattern of violence and conflict by funding armies and criminal organizations.