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Three Chinese nationals have been arrested with 12 gold bars and $800,000 (£650,000) in cash in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, officials said.
According to Jean-Jacques Pourussy, the governor of South Kivu province, the gold and money were hidden under the seats of the car they were traveling in.
He said the operation to arrest the men was kept secret after the recent release of another group of Chinese nationals accused of running an illegal gold mine in the area.
Eastern DR Congo has rich reserves of gold, diamonds and minerals used to make batteries for mobile phones and electric vehicles.
These mineral riches have been looted by foreign groups since the colonial era and are one of the main reasons why the region has been plagued by instability for the past 30 years.
Militant groups control many of the mines in eastern DR Congo, and their leaders get rich by selling them to middlemen.
Purussi said that some of these precious metals dealers have good relations with powerful people in the capital Kinshasa and therefore the mission to carry out these latest arrests had to be kept quiet.
He said they were acting on a tip-off and that the gold and money were only found after a thorough search of the vehicle in Walungu district near the Rwandan border.
He did not say exactly how much gold was confiscated.
The governor told reporters last month that he was shocked to learn that 17 Chinese nationals who had been arrested on charges of running an illegal gold mine had been released and allowed to return to China.
He said it undermined efforts to clean up DR Congo’s notoriously murky mineral sector.
They owed the government $10 million in taxes and fines, Reuters quoted him as saying.
The Chinese embassy does not comment on these allegations.
The arrests come as fighting continues in neighboring North Kivu province, where a A rebel group backed by Rwanda has seized large areas.
last month, DR Congo says it is suing Apple for using “blood minerals,” prompting the tech giant to say it has halted shipments from both DR Congo and neighboring Rwanda.
Rwanda denies being a conduit for the export of illegal minerals from the DR Congo.
In their lawsuit, lawyers acting for the Congolese government alleged that minerals extracted from conflict areas were then “laundered through international supply chains.”
“These actions fueled a cycle of violence and conflict by funding militias and terrorist groups and contributed to forced child labor and environmental destruction,” they said.
