Chinese Illegal Miners Are Back �As Over 1000 Currently Engaged In Illegal Mining In Western Region

About 1000 Chinese immigrants out of the 2000, who were expelled from Ghana in 2013 for entering the country illegally and engaging in illegal mining have returned and resettled in the Western Region to continue their illegal mining activities. This time around, they have engaged the services of the Chiefs and Landowners in the Prestea and Wassa townships and villages and have sought the services of the radical gangs in the communities as their security guards. These guards have been supplied with rifles to operate with. They operate in the night in the deep forest along the Ankobra River and River Prah. They have destroyed the entire banks of the River Prah and Ankobra with dust and waste from their activities and polluted the rivers with cyanide. Some of these concessions have close to 50 workers with half of them staff being security operatives. Thomas Agyei Mireku, an Excavator Operator who has been leasing excavators to the Chinese at Wassa Akropong noted that the business is very lucrative since he could make as much as 10,000 cedis a week and believed the Chinese men who operated the concession were also exploring the resources. In July 2013, more than three thousand illegal Chinese migrants engaged in illegal mining in Ghana were deported by government by special task force established to flush them out. In all, more than 4500 Chinese nationals were deported from Ghana in 2013 alone but close to half of them have returned. They continue to destroy farmlands forest reserves communities and river bodies. According to our sources, in a bid to stay safe whiles exploring, they continue to bribe the security services and some members of tax force established by government to flush them out. This strategy according to our sources has worked since they are no more harassed by the security services in their activities.