NAIMOS operatives have extended their nationwide anti-illegal mining campaign into the Western North Region, resulting in the crackdown of illicit mining networks operating near the Bia River in the Suaman Dadieso District.
The exercise, carried out on December 6, 2025, saw the thirty-one-member task force enter the Kwabena Lantey and Suibo operational zones in the late morning and work deep into the night.
They uncovered a vast illegal mining concession hidden within dense vegetation close to the Bia River.
However, the miners had fled before the team arrived at the scene, with several excavators hurriedly concealed in the bush and their control boards removed in an attempt to prevent seizure.
The operation intensified at a suburb of Dadieso known locally as Niger, where intelligence unexpectedly surfaced from an abandoned mobile phone left behind by a fleeing suspect. The team used the unlocked device to uncover communications linked to a contact saved as “Boss Lii” on the WhatsApp platform.
The operatives tracked and apprehended nine Chinese nationals, all male, and escorted them to multiple sites for on-ground corroboration of their involvement.
Equipment and materials seized included two excavator filters, a Tecno smartphone, a water pumping machine, a mini car washing machine used for mineral processing, a bottle containing a small quantity of mercury, and a motorbike used to support movement between forested sites.
Each item was secured and removed from the operational zone. In a coordinated post-operation support, a four-member team from the Ghana Integrated Iron and Steel Development Corporation arrived on site later in the evening to take custody of scrap metal and heavy equipment remnants.
The team, led by senior officer Hannah Arhin, was escorted by NAIMOS operatives to the Suaman Dadieso District Assembly before continuing further inland to Asankragua as part of a wider national scrap recovery process.
A four-member NAIMOS escort team transported all nine apprehended Chinese foreign nationals to NAIMOS Headquarters for formal investigations.
It has emerged that an anonymous caller attempted to bribe the team with an offer of two million seven hundred thousand Ghana cedis in exchange for the release of the detained foreign nationals. However, the officers rejected the bribe.
