South Africa is by far the world’s largest producer of platinum, a precious metal that is among the rarest on Earth, and extremely valuable to the electronics industry. The country holds over 80% of the world’s platinum reserves, but its mines are battling an unlikely problem that threatens to hit the industry hard: thievery. For years, mining companies in South Africa have been at war with increasingly well-organized crime syndicates that target the country’s lucrative mining industry, especially mines for rare-Earth metals such as platinum. But these thieves are not necessarily after the valuable silvery white ... (full story)