Four Galamsey Operators Jailed 80 Years

Four illegal miners who dressed in military uniform and robbed two men of their gold and a Nokia mobile phone, have been sentenced to a total of 80 years imprisonment in hard labour by a Tarkwa circuit court. The convicts, Ibrahim Adam, 28, Ibrahim Nurudeen, 26, Ebenezer Baah, 19, and Abraham Boama 37, all pleaded guilty to robbery.. Police Detective Chief Inspector Oscar Amponsah told the court presided over by Mr. Samuel Obeng Diawuo that the first complainant Nana Amponsah Okobeng owns a small-scale mining company at Himan, near Prestea, while the second and third complainants Charles Kankam and Emmanuel Odjao Teye, are illegal miners in the same vicinity. According to the Prosecutor, in the first week of April last year, personnel of the national security consisting of military and police men embarked on an exercise to clamp down on illegal Chinese miners. The team proceeded to the first complainant�s site but could not trace any of the Chinese miners. In their absence, six men including the convicts, dressed in military uniform, came to the mining site and met the second and third complainants, who were carrying out illegal mining within the concession with other colleagues. Detective Amponsah said the convicts and their accomplices threatened to kill Charles and Emmanuel with cutlasses if they did not surrender the gold and money they had. With the death threat, the men succeeded in taking away a mobile phone and six blades of gold all valued 570 Ghana cedis. Charles and Emmanuel reported the matter to the security guards at the mining site and the first complainant called the attention of the police on phone. When the police got to the scene, the first complainant and his workers had already arrested the convicts with three cutlasses and military uniform. The Prosecutor said Boama managed to escape arrest with a pump action gun belonging to Nana Amponsah Okobeng, but he was later arrested.