Hole-y Crap

Chicago Tribune

More than a mile below the Earth's surface, South African police are waging a battle against a new breed of pirate: wildcat gold miners who live underground for months at a time in unused mine shafts, smuggling out ore worth millions and defending their turf with homemade grenades and booby traps.

In the past six months, in response to pleas from outgunned private mine-security squads, South African police have created a task force to ambush the thieves. The force has arrested 60 of the pirates in six perilous underground raids.

"It's very, very dangerous," said Mike Fryer, an assistant police commissioner who helped create the new mine unit for the South African Police Service. Police teams, equipped with explosives experts and Special Task Force officers, have dodged shotgun-wielding miners, defused bombs and managed to wrestle out the invaders so far without any loss of life, Fryer said.

Naturally, the cops are afraid to fire guns in the mines, a problem the illegal miners don't seem to have. But they did allude to some "alternative weapons" that they don't want to reveal.

I bet it's water. Flood 'em out.

(tip to Ace)

On the web Posted by AlexC at December 6, 2006 1:19 PM