The Rapid Response Unit of the Forestry Commission has arrested 10 persons including two police officers in the Juaboso district of the Western North region.
Men Shi Yu, 30, Wen Yong Cheng, 30, Wen Fu Lin, 58 and Lee Pin, 60, who are four Chinese nationals, were included in the act, together with their four Ghanaian collaborators, Edward Owusu, 25, Kwesi Frank, 42, Abudu Dramani, 41 and Joe Naburi, 27.
Two police officers, Detective Sergeant, Andrews Yahaya and Lance Corporal Azantillow believed to be protecting them were also arrested at the mining site inside the forest reserve.
Detective Sergeant Andrews Yahaya has been telling the team during interrogation that Chief Inspector Adusei Negga ordered them to patrol the Kokosua Forest Reserve close to Asempaneye where they are stationed.
The Tuesday, December 12, 2023, joint operation by the Rapid Response Unit and the District Forest Management of Juaboso led to the burning of 10 excavators used by the illegal miners.
The Krokosua Forest Reserve has come under siege recently by illegal miners who have already destroyed large parts of it.
The arrest comes on the back of a recent onslaught by the Forestry Commission to flush out pervasive mining in forest reserves across the country.
On Wednesday, November 29, 2023 the Rapid Response Unit of the Forestry Commission conducted a similar operation in the Anwiaso East Forest Reserve, at Manse, near Diaso in the Bibiani Forest district in the Western North region.
It was targeted at flushing out illegal miners who had entered the reserve with heavy machinery and were destroying the forest cover and polluting water bodies.
Ten illegal miners were arrested in that operation. The team destroyed two excavators and two heavy-duty electrical plants found at the illegal mining site. The suspects were handed over to the Dunkwa Police.
The Coordinator of the Rapid Response Unit at the Forestry Commission Headquarters, Samuel Darko-Akonor has issued a warning to individuals mining in forest reserves to halt such criminal activities.
“The unit is ever prepared to carry the fight to them to save our forest and our water bodies,” he said.
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