Gold Lures Mongolia’s ‘Ninja Miners’ to Hills

In dirt-poor Mongolia, thousands of jobless fortune-seekers burrow under the earth each night looking for gold.

Lured by tall tales of those who struck it rich tunneling the gray-green hills, these “ninja miners” flock to the edges of the nation’s burgeoning mining industry. Armed with shovels and buckets, they wait until the mine companies close shop for the day and then start digging.

Some die, buried alive in their rudimentary pits. In winter, when ice covers the steppes, they use blowtorches to soften the frozen ground.

“We dig the earth, we work with our hands, we find the gold. We are not stealing from anyone,” says one 38-year-old digger, Sharaa.

It’s a precarious existence, and mostly illegal. The big mining firms want authorities to crack down, but the government has few staff and little money.

Mongolia’s economy collapsed with the end of Soviet subsidies in 1990-91 and declined further after a series of devastating droughts and harsh winters decimated livestock herds. Herders who lost everything streamed into the cities looking for work, increasing the ranks of urban unemployed.

Many jobless choose to try their luck in dust-covered mining towns like Zaamar. Saloons and sundry shops have sprouted to serve the miners -- known as “ninjas” for their nocturnal ways and because the green plastic buckets they carry on their backs make them look like the cartoon Ninja Turtles.

“We ninjas don’t damage the environment,” Sharaa says. “We work on what’s left over.”

He won’t say how much money he makes. A 3.75-gram nugget of gold fetches $47, but he can go days without finding even a glimmer.

The miners have come by the tens of thousands in Mongolia’s version of America’s 19th century gold rush, drawn by dreams of sudden wealth.

Sharaa recounts the oft-told but unconfirmed tale of a miner who found a fist-sized nugget that netted $15,000.

“As long as there is gold in Mongolia, there will be ninja miners,” he says.