Pirates seeking gold still exist..

Not the image of the swashbuckling Johnny Depp type pirate but in South Africa as gold mines dig even deeper to find the precious metal and it appears according to this article they risk their lives:

The pirates mine the ore then extract gold using dangerous mercury, often while still underground or in illegal processing plants hidden in sprawling hostels.

While the number of illegal miners underground at any one time is hard to verify, anecdotal accounts put it as high as 1,000.

The municipality-owned G Hostel, a wasteland of bungalows and sewage on the outskirts of Welkom, is notorious. It is from there that it is believed miners are recruited for illegal operations.

A day after police raided the hostel, reporters were shown the remnants of the crude processes taking place there — blackened zinc sheets and tin containers in which mercury is burned.

A collection of plastic buckets stood out amid the filth, some with freshly washed silt coating the bottom — in them a glitter of gold dust.