MMCZ is using drones to stop gold and lithium smugglers. Will it work?

When a government agency starts flying drones around to stop mineral smuggling, you know the situation is out of hand. That’s exactly what the Mineral Marketing Corporation of Zimbabwe (MMCZ) is doing.

They’ve finally confirmed what we have all known, boots on the ground aren’t enough, so they’re sending eyes into the sky.

Drones will be used to monitor mining operations and to make sure what miners say they’ve dug up actually matches what’s sitting in their stockpiles.

MMCZ says it’s a way to tighten control and reduce the amount of minerals vanishing without a trace. You can already guess what minerals we’re talking about; gold, lithium, diamonds. The expensive stuff.

So, what’s the plan?

MMCZ’s new drones will:

• Fly over mine sites to verify production volumes.
• Watch how minerals move around, especially in areas where inspectors struggle to reach.
• Help crack down on smuggling operations that have taken full advantage of weak monitoring systems.

They’re also working on a whistle-blower platform so people can report smuggling anonymously. That part could end up doing more than the drones.

The fact that this is necessary says everything

If you’ve followed Zimbabwe’s mining story over the last decade, you already know that minerals are disappearing at a ridiculous rate.

Many reports showed that millions in gold and lithium were being smuggled out, and for years, the official response has been underwhelming. Hence all the speculation/conspiracy theories that the higher ups must be involved for this to not be resolved for so long.

Now MMCZ is admitting, without saying it out loud, that traditional systems have failed. The fact that they’re turning to drones shows just how little trust there is in what people on the ground are reporting. That’s a big deal.

Will this work?

It depends. Drones can tell you that something isn’t adding up. Maybe there’s more ore on the ground than what’s been declared. Maybe minerals are being loaded at night in a suspicious location.

But someone still has to act on that data. Someone still has to show up, investigate, arrest, prosecute — that kind of thing.

And that’s where things usually break down. Because if I’m being honest, I don’t believe for a second that they are clueless as to how millions are being smuggled out. Someone, somewhere, is being paid to turn a blind eye.

This means you can have a thousand drones and a hotline ringing non-stop with whistle-blowers, but if the people running the system are in on it, or just uninterested, then nothing changes.

At best, it becomes a slightly more expensive way to ignore the same problems. It’s sad just how much we have seen that happen in this country.

Still, this is a shift

To be fair, it’s good to see a government body trying to use tech for more than just press statements. Drones are useful, they’re relatively cheap these days, and they remove some of the human manipulation that’s wrecked this sector for years.

If this is followed up with real action, and if the whistle-blower platform is actually secure and trusted, then we might start to see some wins. But if it’s just for show, then the smugglers will carry on as usual, and just look up a bit more often.