Why Criminal Gangs Are Killing for Sand: The Sand Mafia

The Rise of The Sand Mafia:

Sand is the invisible foundation of our modern world. It’s in the concrete of our buildings and roads, the glass in our windows and smartphones, even the silicon chips that power technology. Globally, sand is the second most-used natural resource after water, with tens of billions of tons consumed each year. Yet an unprecedented construction boom has led to shortages of the specific sand needed for building, depleting riverbeds and beaches around the world. This surging demand is colliding with geological reality – vast deserts of sand can’t be used to build cities – and as a result, this shortage has sparked a dangerous black market for sand in many countries. All of this demand has given rise to what are now known as sand mafias. Nowhere is this more visible than in India, where construction sand is so scarce and so profitable that powerful cartels have seized control of the trade. For these groups, violence is simply part of doing business. Rival gangs clash over riverbeds. Journalists, activists, and even government officials who try to expose or stop them have been threatened, beaten, and in some cases, murdered. In parts of rural India, locals know to stay away when the trucks come at night — because those trucks are guarded not just by workers, but by armed enforcers.

The Massive Demand for Construction Sand

Every concrete apartment block, glass skyscraper, or paved highway is essentially made of sand. Modern urbanization relies on sand-heavy materials like concrete, asphalt, and glass. As populations grow (especially in Africa and Asia) and cities expand, demand for construction-grade sand has exploded. Today we use roughly 50 billion tons of sand and gravel each year, enough to blanket the entire United Kingdom in sand. This makes sand a commodity in its own right – sometimes called “the new gold” – and consumption is still rising. In fact, we now extract far more sand annually than nature can replenish, raising fears that we could run out of accessible construction sand by 2050 if current trends continue.

It might sound implausible to “run out” of sand when deserts cover large swaths of the planet. However, not all sand is created equal. The type of sand needed for concrete and building comes mostly from rivers, lakes, and coastlines – and those sources are being exhausted. Desert sand, by contrast, is geologically abundant but practically useless for construction, for reasons we’ll explore soon. This mismatch between where sand exists and where it’s usable underpins the current crisis.

The Rise of the Sand Black Market

In regions like Tamil Nadu, in India, unregulated sand extraction has lowered riverbeds and altered waterways, causing collapsing banks and the loss of farmland to erosion. The soaring value of construction sand has given rise to a lucrative black market. In India, demand far outstrips legally available supply, and organized criminal gangs – dubbed the **“sand mafia” – have moved in to fill the gap. Illegal sand miners in India routinely plunder riverbeds and beaches for high-quality sand, often in collusion with corrupt officials. Sand has become such a prized commodity that mafias will fight – even kill – for control of sand sources. In fact, illegal sand mining has been called the largest organized criminal activity in India today, and those criminal enterprises are notoriously violent. Whistleblowers, police, environmental activists and journalists have been threatened and even murdered for opposing the sand mafia’s operations. In one extreme case, an Indian journalist was burned alive in 2019 for reporting on sand mining corruption. Unfortunately, such brutality is not an isolated incident – hundreds of people have reportedly died in clashes over sand in recent years in India, Kenya, and Nigeria.

This “sand rush” underworld is now a global phenomenon, extending far beyond India. In parts of Southeast Asia, sand smuggling has become big business – for instance, Singapore’s voracious land reclamation needs led to sand being illegally dredged from Cambodia and Indonesia on a massive scale. Across Africa, from Morocco to Kenya, criminals are mining sand from rivers and beaches, devastating ecosystems. In Morocco, it’s estimated that half of the sand used in construction is mined illegally – often literally stolen from beaches, speeding up coastal erosion. Similarly, West African countries like Senegal and Gambia have seen their shorelines retreat as illicit operators haul away sand for concrete. Violent sand mafias have been reported in at least a dozen countries, including not just India but also Algeria, Nigeria, Kenya, and even Brazil and Mexico. In South Africa, rival sand gangs have clashed, leading to murders. Wherever regulation is weak and construction demand is strong, sand mining cartels have emerged, reminiscent of classic mafia syndicates. They siphon off sand in the dead of night or bribe officials for permits, and the profits are enormous – the black market trade in sand is valued in the hundreds of billions of dollars worldwide.

Beyond the crime and violence, rampant sand mining inflicts heavy environmental damage. River ecosystems are being destroyed as sand is dredged out: for example, in the Mekong River of Vietnam and Cambodia, intensive sand extraction has caused parts of the delta to start sinking and collapsing into the river. This leads to higher saltwater intrusion (as the delta’s land drops below sea level), damaging agriculture. In Sri Lanka, excessive sand removal in one river caused the flow to reverse direction, pulling sea water inland and even enabling saltwater crocodiles to swim upstream into new areas. Coastal sand mining removes natural barriers to storm surges, leaving coasts more vulnerable to erosion and climate-driven sea level rise. Along India’s Tamil Nadu coast, so much beach sand was illegally mined that entire villages had to be abandoned as their shorelines gave way to the sea. These examples underscore that the sand shortage isn’t just an economic or engineering issue – it’s also tearing at the fabric of communities and ecosystems.

Why Can’t We Just Use Desert Sand to Build Cities?

Over thousands of years, dry winds have polished desert sand into near-perfect rounded grains. This wind-blown sand is too smooth and too uniform to use in concrete, since the grains don’t lock together effectively. In contrast, the sand that builders need has grittier, more angular particles that can bind with cement. Despite the sheer volume of sand in deserts, its rounded shape and limited size range mean it cannot provide the structural strength required for modern construction. Geologists even have a term for the ideal, angular sand used in building: “sharp sand”, meaning sand whose grains come from freshly broken rock.

Desert sand tends to be very fine and uniformly sized – wind selectively carries away smaller dust and leaves a narrow size of sand behind. Construction sand from rivers or crushed rock includes a range of particle sizes, which helps it pack together densely. A mix of grain sizes fills in gaps and adds strength in concrete. Desert sand’s uniform fine grains, by contrast, make the resulting material weak and impractical.

To add to this, beach sand or sea sand is often mixed with salt from the ocean. Chloride and sulfate salts cling to these sand grains and can cause corrosion of steel rebar and chemical damage in concrete. Using beach sand in construction requires extensive washing to remove salt, which is costly. (In the Middle East, for example, coastal sand is sometimes mined and washed multiple times to make it usable.) Even then, sea sand grains are usually rounded and may need to be blended with more angular material.

Geological Origins: River Sand vs. Desert Sand

Why are some sands angular and others rounded? The answer lies in their geological journey. River sand typically begins as rock in mountains and upland areas. Rain and rivers erode these rocks over millennia, breaking off grains and carrying them downstream. During this journey, the grains tumble and collide in water but not enough to completely round off all their edges. By the time the sediments settle in a riverbed or delta, you have a mix of grain sizes – and many grains are still angular or irregular in shape. For example, sand eroded from granite might contain hard quartz fragments that are sharp-edged. Builders call this “sharp sand” and prize it for making concrete and mortar because the angular particles grip one another. Much of the construction sand supply comes from rivers and their floodplains, but these sources are limited. In fact, many small rivers around the world have been drained of sand faster than it can be naturally replenished, turning sand into a non-renewable resource in practice.

Desert sand, on the other hand, has usually had a far longer and more punishing journey. In arid regions like the Sahara, wind is the dominant force shaping the landscape. Wind can carry sand grains across great distances, and in the process the grains continually grind against each other. Fine particles (clays and silts) get blown away entirely, leaving behind mostly quartz sand – one of the hardest, most durable minerals. Over time, this wind action polishes the sand grains into smooth, rounded shapes. The Sahara’s famous dunes are a product of this: endless hills of sand that feel powdery to the touch. Those very properties – uniform, round, polished grains – make desert sand useless for construction. The grains don’t stick together with cement, so you can’t build a stable structure from Sahara dunes. (As a telling fact, desert-rich Dubai actually imports coarse sand from other regions for its building projects because local dune sand won’t work for concrete.)

Coastal sand has a mixed origin. Beach sands form from a combination of river-borne sediment and the pounding of waves on rocks and shells over thousands of years. This can produce sand that is angular and varied in size – physically suitable for construction. In fact, freshly deposited marine sand (like that dredged from the seafloor near coasts) is sometimes used as a construction material in places like Europe. However, removing sand from beaches or the seafloor comes at a high environmental cost: it can lead to coastal erosion, habitat loss, and salinization of soil inland. Additionally, as noted, beach sand needs to be desalinated to purge salt content. The result is that the world’s construction industry still leans heavily on river sand and land-based quarries, whose sand has the right shape and texture – and those sources are under pressure like never before.

Conclusion: Shifting the Sands of Sustainability

The world’s seemingly endless supply of sand is in fact finite, at least when it comes to the high-quality aggregate needed to build safe, durable structures. We have learned that geology matters – the origin and shape of sand grains determine whether they can bind into concrete or not. Riverbeds and beaches can supply that material, but they are being stripped bare under rising demand. In turn, scarcity has bred an often-lethal black market that spans the globe, enriching criminal networks at the expense of environments and lives. This growing sand crisis has taken many by surprise, but it is now drawing serious attention. Scientists and policymakers are beginning to call for treating sand as a strategic resource: better monitoring extraction, recycling construction materials, and developing alternatives to natural sand. Ultimately, curbing the sand shortage will require international cooperation and local enforcement to protect critical sand sources and prevent “sand wars” from escalating further. Humanity literally builds its foundations on sand – and recognizing the true value of that humble grain is the first step toward using it wisely and sustainably.

Here's the video we made on this on the OzGeology YouTube Channel: