Police arrested two Chinese nationals on Sunday while trespassing on the grounds of the Kangankunde Rare Earths Project in Malawi.
Security personnel said the suspects were conducting “unauthorized geological sampling” of one of the world’s largest undeveloped rare earth deposits — and one of the few major deposits that China does not control.
The Kangankunde project is managed by an Australian company called Lindian Resources which described the trespassing incident as a serious security breach.
“This event underscores the critical importance of Kangankunde in the global rare earths supply chain at a time of increasing geopolitical and trade tensions, particularly amid tariff escalations between the US and China, where rare earth access is of central strategic concern,” said Lindian Resources executive Robert Martin on Tuesday.
“Especially with pre-construction works well underway, to find foreign nationals on an active, unmapped haul road allegedly taking geological samples is concerning — specifically given the current geopolitical nature of the rare earths market,” Martin said.
Lindian began preliminary work on the Kangankunde site last week, with an eye toward completing a three-mile-long access road by June, and then commencing work on the infrastructure necessary to support a full mining project.
The $40 million mining and processing project is scheduled to begin producing usable ore in 2026 and operate for at least 45 years after that, producing over 15,000 metric tons of high-grade concentrate per year. Lindian’s lease agreement includes a ten-percent royalty payment to the government of Malawi.
The Kangankunde site has several appealing features, including proximity to a sizable city, ground water that can be tapped for the mining project, and a low concentration of the radioactive elements that can make rare earth mining difficult. These features made it possible to set a very aggressive timetable for launching the mine.
As Martin indicated, rare earth minerals are a major strategic resource with applications in everything from military hardware to advanced electronics and battery technology. China dominates the world market for rare earths, especially in the area of processing, which is expensive and complicated.
Lindian took the precaution of stationing fourteen security personnel on the undeveloped mining site equipped with automated cameras and drones. They have reportedly thwarted several trespassing attempts.
The incident on Sunday reportedly involved two Chinese nationals and two Malawian guides who deliberately bypassed security barriers to gain access to a forested area on the grounds of the Kangankunde project. The security team caught up with the intruders in a matter of hours.
“The trespassers utilized unmapped haul roads to evade detection, suggesting prior reconnaissance of the site’s layout. Their activities align with historical patterns of industrial espionage in the rare earth sector, where mineral composition data and extraction methodologies hold significant commercial value,” investment news site Discovery Alert reported.
“Cybersecurity firm Mandiant reports a 300% increase in phishing attacks targeting rare earth executives since 2022, often traced to APT41, a Chinese state-sponsored hacking group,” the report noted.
Local media quoted Malawian villagers who live in the Kangankunde area saying they caught the Chinese nationals trespassing and then handed them over to Lindian Resources security and police from the nearby city of Balaka.
“This is the third time these Chinese nationals have done this. Their actions are beginning to raise alarm to us as members of the community,” said local community leader James Makanga.
As for what the intruders might have been hoping to accomplish, a local business leader suggested the government of Malawi might not have signed a binding agreement with Lindian yet, so Chinese agents are trying to assess the site and take samples before making a competing bid for the lease.
An even stranger twist in the case came on Monday, when a spokesperson for the Balaka Police Station denied that anyone had been arrested for intruding on the mine site.
“We only took them for questioning,” the police spokesperson told Malawi’s Nyasa Times. “Some community members wanted to attack them on suspicion that they are illegal miners.”
Trevor Hiwa, manager of Malawi projects for Lindian Resources, confirmed local claims that Chinese operatives were caught trespassing on the Kangankunde site on two previous occasions, in October and January. Hiwa said he believed China is interested in “undermining the West’s access to rare earths.”
“The police appear strangely unwilling to treat intrusions with the gravity they deserve. Is this incompetence, or complicity?” the Nyasa Times wondered, implying some elements within the government of Malawi were either colluding with the Chinese, or afraid of making them angry.
