Posted on 07/28/2011 4:45:50 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
Four tonnes of gold ore were allegedly stolen by a 46 member gang from a small scale gold mine in Zimbabwe in two separate raids, state media reported on Wednesday.
The robbers allegedly beat up workers with iron bars and clubs.
One of the workers lost two fingers during one of the raids at the mine at Chev Chess Farm near Kadoma, a town about 140 kilometres south west of the capital Harare.
According to the Herald newspaper, the first group of 19 armed men went to the mine on June 8 at night driving pickup trucks.
"They were armed with catapults, stones, machetes, axes, knives, clubs and iron bars," the paper quoted a police source saying.
The gang allegedly beat up farm workers before stealing gold ore which they loaded into their trucks before driving away.
Another group raided the mine on June 22 at night and used the same methods to steal three tonnes of gold ore.
A report was made to the police but no arrests have been made so far.
The owner of the mine Sam Munyoro confirmed the incident but refused to shed more light.
(Excerpt) Read more at africareview.com ...
Four tonnes of gold ore were allegedly stolen by a 46 member gang from a small scale gold mine in Zimbabwe in two separate raids. File | Africa Review
[singing] Zim - Bab - Way - Whoa oh...
Hope it was Navy Seal Team 6!
/johnny
wait... the thieves are refining this ore themselves??
Gold ore what, they're not sure?
These thugs probably work for Mugabe
Good luck with that gold ore dumbasses. LOL
Catapults? "Achmed, grab the catapults. You never know if we might need to breech some ramparts."
Breach, not breech. Oops.
Maybe you can move ore faster with catapults if you need to.
“Mugabe Army Veterans”
Thanks for the ping, GeronL.
“catapults” = Slingshots in Brit-Speak.
Zimbabwe English is a form of Brit-Speak.
I was about to say that 4 tonnes of gold is the whole Zimbabwe treasury, probably worth about a gazillion Zimbabwe dollars. But then I saw that it was 4 tonnes of gold ore. The value would depend upon the concentration of gold in the ore. If, for example, the ore was 1/2% gold, the value would be about $300,000,000.
(Did I mention that those are Zimbabwe dollars? It would be less than a million in U.S. dollars.)
I'm sure you already know but just in case someone wanders along that doesn't Zimbabwe no longer has a currency. They use U.S. Dollars of South African Rands. Mugabe actually got away with paying off a large portion of their foreign debt with newly printed money until the IMF / World Bank figured out what was going on.
Catapults are really, really old school! Ahhh, I long for the days of catapults, battering rams, siege towers, and flaming arrows! Any one for some boiling hot oil?
Got it, thanks. That makes a lot more sense that dragging a trebuchet or two to the battle.
My son has some hyper inflationary Zimbabwe notes. One is for 15 trillion dollars. It was worth around 30 cents US when it was issued.
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