Church elder arrested as galamsey foreman in Ashanti
A man who identifies as an elder of The Church of Pentecost in Konongo has been arrested and handed over to police after being unmasked as a foreman of an illegal small-scale mining site in the Asante Akim South District of the Ashanti Region.
David Bobie Peter was picked up during a targeted enforcement sweep conducted by the National Anti-Illegal Mining Operations Secretariat (NAIMOS) along the Kume River, spanning the lands of Morso, Kyekyebiase, and Bimma.
The operation began at an illegal mining enclave in Kyekyebiase, where several young men were caught actively mining during the surprise raid. On spotting the task force, they fled into surrounding bushland, using their knowledge of local escape routes to evade capture. Though no arrests were made in the chase, the task force dismantled eight Chanfang machines, four wooden gold-washing platforms, and set ablaze several pipe hoses used in the operation. Twelve water pumping machines were seized as exhibits.
A sweep of nearby bushes uncovered fresh excavator tracks leading into an adjoining cocoa farm, where a Sany excavator had been hidden among the crops. Its control boards and monitor had already been removed before the raid, but task force operators rendered it fully inoperable by detaching its oil pump and other critical components.
It was during this sweep that Bobie Peter surfaced. Dressed in a yellow T-shirt and white shorts, he approached the task force and claimed he was simply visiting his farm. The story quickly unravelled when intelligence identified him as a foreman of one of the illegal sites in the area. Confronted with the information, he confessed, admitting not only to his role as foreman of a mining site at Morso, but also that he had been sent to the scene by his boss, a Mr. Appiah, to confirm whether the NAIMOS task force was indeed present after word of the operation spread through the mining community.
He then led investigators to his site at Morso, where the scale of destruction told its own story. The Kume River had been heavily polluted and sections of it diverted to support the operation. A second Sany excavator was found at the site and similarly immobilised by the task force.
Bobie Peter has since been handed over to the Konongo District Police Station for investigation and prosecution.
NAIMOS used the occasion to issue a warning that no social standing, religious office, or political affiliation would shield anyone engaged in illegal mining from the law, calling on traditional rulers, local authorities, intelligence agencies, and security services to intensify monitoring across affected communities.
Source: myjoyonline.com
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