1000 Illegal Miners Busted…Only 95 Prosecuted

Over thousand illegal miners have so far been arrested by the joint military/police taskforce popularly known as ‘operation vanguard’, a group formed to tackle illegal mining in the country.

This was made known by the National Commander of operation vanguard task force Col. Amoah Ayisi in an interview on Peace FM morning show with Kwami Sefa Kayi, Tuesday.

Col. Ayisi disclosed that so far, 82 small arms with 1,370 cartridges and 170 excavators have been seized. Apart from that over 3000 chang fa machines have been destroyed.

Slow prosecution

Col. Ayisi has also bemoaned the slow pace at which the court prosecute those arrested. According to him, even though over 1000 illegal miners have been arrested only 95 have been prosecuted.

“Prosecution is a bit slow…we pray that it will be a bit faster to serve as a better punishment for illegal mining…out of the 1000, only 95 has been prosecuted…majority of them have been released on bail. The justice system should be quick for our work to be effective…but we are serving the country so we will do our best…” he assured.