The Rapid Response Unit of the Forestry Commission in the Juaboso district of the Western Region has arrested ten (10) individuals for engaging in illegal mining activities in a forest reserve.
The 10 individuals include four Chinese nationals identified as Men Shi Yu, 30, Wen Yong Cheng, 30, Wen Fu Lin, 58 and Lee Pin, 60, their four Ghanaian collaborators, Edward Owusu, 25, Kwesi Frank, 42, Abudu Dramani, 41 and Joe Naburi, 27 and two police officers, Detective Sergeant, Yahaya Andrews and Lance Corporal Azantillow believed to be protecting.
A joint operation conducted the by Rapid Response Unit and the District Forest Management of Juaboso also saw the burning of 10 excavators used by the miners in the Krokosua Forest Reserve. has come under siege recently by illegal miners who have already destroyed large parts of it.
According to reports, 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.
The commission which has come under criticism in the past week added that the operation is targeted at flushing out illegal miners who had entered the reserve with heavy machinery and were destroying the forest cover and polluting water bodies.
Speaking to the media after the arrest, the manager of the Juaboso Forestry Commission, Mr Adu Kwabena Bonnah, issued a warning to individuals mining in forest reserves to put a stop to it.
“The unit is ever prepared to carry the fight to them to save our forest and our water bodies,” he said.
The team also destroyed two excavators and two heavy-duty electrical plants found at the site.