The Ghana National Association of Small Scale Miners Taskforce has arrested five illegal miners for operating in the Birim River at Mampong in the Atewa East District of the Eastern Region.
The taskforce also set ablaze 40 changfans and confiscated two newly built changfans, which were just about to be deployed into the Birim River by the illegal miners.
The suspects are part of numerous defiant illegal miners who returned to the site to continue their illegal activities a few days after the military ambushed the area to burn several changfans.
Two of them were arrested in the middle of the river when the task force surrounded them while they were mining with their changfan.
As the task force was leaving the site, they encountered a truck transporting two newly built changfans to the same location. Upon seeing the task force, two occupants of the truck ran away.
However, the task force pursued them and eventually apprehended both individuals.
The last person identified as Nana Kwadwo Ayimadu, who claimed ownership of the changfans, was arrested after attempting to prevent the taskforce from towing the truck with the changfans.
The suspects who were taken to the Kibi District Police Command are currently in custody and are expected to be arraigned before court.
Meanwhile, the truck with the newly built changfans has also been handed over to the police to aid their investigations.
Mr. Thomas Larbi, the Treasurer of the Ghana National Association of Small Scale Miners, who led the operation on Wednesday, October 16, 2024, revealed this in an interview monitored by The Ghana Report on Channel One News.
He also noted that the team is committed to dealing with illegal miners polluting water bodies in the country.
This latest arrest comes at the back of the arrest of nine suspected illegal miners and the destruction of 23 changfans along the Ankobra River at Prestea in the Western Region by the government’s anti-galamsey task force, Operation Halt.
This operation was part of a larger effort involving over 100 soldiers, deployed to combat illegal mining (galamsey) activities in key areas across the Eastern, Central, and Western Regions.
In Prestea Nakaba, 33 grinding machines, 27 water pumps, 23 changfans, and three changfan boards were destroyed, and a motorbike was burned.
