Inside South Africa’s Lawless Underground Gold Empire

When corporate mining operations abandoned the gold reefs surrounding Johannesburg, thousands of unsealed shafts were left exposed across a region crippled by mass unemployment. Heavily armed illegal miners known as Zama Zamas quickly moved in to harvest billions of rand in remaining ore, transforming subterranean tunnels into a violent, parallel society governed by rival criminal syndicates. #southafrica #zamazama #explained Chapters: 00:00 – Operation Prosper: The military deploys 00:58 – How corporate abandonment built an underground empire 01:43 – The rise of heavily armed mining cartels 02:02 – Survival and governance two kilometres underground 03:01 – The transnational pipeline: Smuggling gold abroad 03:51 – Siege at Stilfontein: The state cuts off supplies 06:09 – High-level corruption and institutional failure 07:33 – Why military force cannot fix economic collapse Read the best of our journalism: https://www.thetimes.com/ Subscribe to the Times Originals YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/subscription_... Find us on Facebook:   / timesandsundaytimes   Find us on X: https://x.com/thetimes Find us on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thetimes?lang=en Find us on Instagram:   / thetimes