Bekwai Circuit Court in Ashanti Region on Thursday, July 1, 2021, remanded 22 illegal miners into Police Custody to reappear two weeks later.
The accused persons were arrested by a joint Security Taskforce numbering about a hundred comprising the Police, Immigration, Fire, Prisons, and the Forestry Commission led by the District Chief Executive for Akrofuom, Maurice Jonas Woode.
A total of 24 were arrested engaging in illegal mining in Sukuma Forest reserve at Pewodie near Grumesa in the Adansi Akrofuom District of the Ashanti Region but two were established to be farmers mistakenly arrested by the team hence released.
The accused persons have been using chanfai machine and gold detectors to mine in river Nana Pomah which take its headwaters from the forest reserve.
According to Palmer Aikens, Assistant District Manager of the Forestry Commission at Bekwai, the illegal miners had erected tents which they sleep in the forest reserve under their concealed mining activities.
He said over 200 tents were identified and destroyed. Also, 16 Chanfai machines were set on fire, 104 water pumping machines, and 9 Gold detectors machines were also seized from the miners as exhibits.
Source: Mybrytfmonline.com/Obed Ansah
