TRAFFICKING IN STOLEN GOLD.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1261, 30 April 1896, Page 17

TRAFFICKING IN STOLEN GOLD.

WHO IS THE “ I. G. B. MAN"?

These initials are those of tho words “ illicit gold-buying," and “ the I. G. M. man" —you hear the expression frequently enough in Johannesburg—is a dealer in stolen gold. This illegal trade (writes a Transvaal contributor to Cassell's Saturday Journal), is carried on iri a very free and easy manner, the authorities iti tho Transvaal making no such systematic eflort to suppress it as do the Kimberley authorities in the case of illicit diamond-buying. Tho gold i 3 chiefly stolen by white employees at the mines, and is usually taken away in tho form of amalgam. When the crushed gold comes from under the heavy stampers, which have reduced tho rock containing it to powder, it is

swept by a current of water on to the cupper plates coated with quicksilver. The mercury has an affinity for gold, and ictains it on the plate. When “ ele suing up " day comes, and the output of tiie mine has to be ascertained, the amalgam of geld and mercury is scraped off tho copper plates and retorted, the gold being set free ready for smelting.

It is during the cleaning-up that the amalgam is stolen, generally by white employees ivo.kaig in the battery shed, whose duty it is fo strip the plate.

It is said that there are men in Johannesburg whose names are well known in the wor d of mining finance who act as “ fences" fur this stolen amalgam. One of these offered a friend of mine, the other day, five mixed sacks full of am ilgam at a speculative price of £ISOO.

The police take little or no cognisance of the illicit trade which goes on daily under their very noses, cldefly, perhaps, because Johannesburg has flic most corrupt police force in the whole world. The managers of mines complain bitterly of the wholesale r Joheiy of amalgam ; and some of them have i 11st i tuted detective forces of their own, which have been attended with more or less success. The Chamber of Mines appointed Captain Con per to investigite the matter, a couple of years ago; but ever some trivial question the captain (who had accumulated a mans of valuable material) and the Chamber quarrelled, and no one was appointed to carry on the captain’s wot k.

The petty “ fences " —as distinguished fr. m the wholestle gentlemen to whom alludon has been mule—are usually to he found among the Jews and foreigners who run the canteens on the Reef. These combine other more or less shady occupations with that of relieving the thieves of their illicitly gotten metal. The gold is not infrequently put tff through men who are “running tribute" —i who are working a hit of reef for their own benefit., and paying tribuLu Lo some company 011 whose land the reef crops out. “ Tributors" have a license to sell gold, and they are frequently made the medium between the amalgam thieves and the banks who buy. It is estimated that not less than aix*y thousand ounces of pure gold are stolen from Rand mines in the course of twelve months alone. And yet one rarely, if ever, hears of a prosecution.