Barely two days after intercepting a truck loaded with 22 brand-new chanfang machines at Eshaem in the Nzema East Municipality, the National Anti-Illegal Mining Operations Secretariat (NAIMOS) has recorded another major breakthrough in its emerging strategy to dismantle the supply networks sustaining illegal mining.
In the latest operation, a NAIMOS Task Force operating from Enchi intercepted another truck at Akontombra Nkwanta in the Aowin District of the Western North Region while personnel were proceeding towards Juaboso for an anti-illegal mining operation.
A search of the vehicle uncovered a substantial consignment of equipment commonly associated with illegal mining operations.
The equipment included 43 chanfang machines, 28 water pumps, 28 large plastic pans, reinforced hoses, heavy-duty hoses, shafts, hammers, Wellington boots, raincoats, blowtorches, and other components used to assemble and operate mining machinery.
Two vehicles, including the truck transporting the equipment and a Toyota Corolla, were also taken into custody as part of ongoing investigations.
Two persons involved in the transport and intended receipt of the equipment were detained and handed over to the Enchi Police Station for further investigation.
The seized equipment and vehicles have been secured pending further investigations to establish their source, intended destination and any possible connection to illegal mining activities in the area.
The Akontombra Nkwanta interception occurred just two days after the 25 October NAIMOS operation at Eshaem, during which personnel destroyed 28 chanfang machines, 19 water pumps, and five makeshift structures as enforcement operations extended towards the Ankobra River.
During the Eshaem operation, the Task Force also intercepted a truck from which 22 brand-new chanfang machines were being offloaded into a store.
An adjoining store containing mining equipment and spare parts was subsequently secured for further investigation.
The latest interception reinforces intelligence that illegal mining operations are sustained by organised supply chains capable of replacing equipment destroyed during enforcement operations.
For NAIMOS, the emerging pattern confirms that enforcement cannot be limited to miners encountered at riverbanks or mining sites.
NAIMOS will increasingly focus intelligence and enforcement attention on equipment fabricators, assemblers, dealers, transporters, warehouses, stores and persons who knowingly supply or rent machinery for illegal mining operations.
The objective is to make it increasingly difficult and costly for illegal miners to replace equipment and return to cleared sites.
The interception of 43 chanfang machines in a single consignment, shortly after another consignment of 22 new machines was intercepted, demonstrates the scale of the logistics network supporting illegal mining and underscores the importance of attacking that network at source.
The Western North operation forms part of the ongoing NAIMOS Op WATER SHIELD activities around the Boin and Tano river systems, and of Op FOREST SHIELD in the Krokosue Forest Reserve.
NAIMOS will continue to combine riverine patrols, mobile enforcement, intelligence gathering and targeted interdiction to prevent equipment from reaching illegal mining sites.
The Secretariat is also strengthening community engagement and intelligence gathering to identify locations where illegal mining equipment is fabricated, assembled, stored or distributed.
NAIMOS’s message is unequivocal: enforcement will no longer begin and end at the mining pit.
“Persons who knowingly fabricate, assemble, transport, store, sell or rent machinery for illegal mining should expect increased scrutiny and appropriate enforcement action where evidence establishes their involvement.
“If illegal miners cannot obtain the machinery, pumps and logistics required to operate, they cannot continue to destroy Ghana’s rivers, forests and farmland.”
NAIMOS is therefore taking the fight from the mining site to the entire supply chain that keeps illegal mining in business.