South African police launch manhunt for illegal mining ‘ringleader’

South African police have launched a manhunt for an alleged “kingpin” accused of controlling operations at an abandoned gold mine where 78 bodies were discovered last week.

Police said authorities helped James Neo Tshoaeli, a Lesotho national also known as Tiger, escape after being arrested from the Stilfontein mine.

More than 240 illegal miners were brought back alive from the mine after it was blocked off for months by police.

The agents had cut off food and water supplies in an attempt to force them to leave the mine.

Some miners accused Mr. Tshoaeli of being responsible for “deaths, assaults and torture” underground, a police statement said on Monday.

Mr Tshoaeli also allegedly hoarded and kept food out of reach of other miners, many of whom appeared emaciated and weak when they surfaced from the shaft.

Police Commissioner Patrick Asaneng warned that “heads will roll” once they find the officials who helped Mr Tshoaeli escape, the police statement said.

In a candid appearance on the South African channel Newzroom AfricaPolice spokeswoman Athlenda Mathe said police were “disappointed” and “embarrassed.”

Ms Mathe said an investigation into the escape had been launched and would begin with an “internal investigation” by police.

After months of blocking access to the Stilfontein mine shaft, a court has ordered the government to facilitate last week’s rescue operation.

On Thursday, as rescue operations drew to a close, Ms Mathe said it would be a “colossal task” to identify the 78 bodies found – partly because many of them were undocumented migrants.

The miners had been underground since November last year, when police launched nationwide operations targeting illicit mining.

Thousands of illegal miners, known as “zama zamas” (“those who take a chance” in Zulu), operate in mineral-rich South Africa.

The Stilfontein mine – about 145km southwest of Johannesburg – has now been cleared of bodies and living people, police said.

A union and human rights activists accused authorities of overseeing a “massacre.”

But police defended their actions, saying it was a case of criminality and that it was the illicit mining barons who controlled the flow of supplies and tried to stop people from resurface.