NAIMOS Intensifies Crackdown on Eastern Region Galamsey

  


The National Anti-Illegal Mining Operations Secretariat (NAIMOS) sustained its uncompromising campaign against illegal mining on Sunday, 8 December 2025, delivering another decisive blow to galamsey operators in the Eastern Region. In a day-long operation, the task force carried out strategic patrols across key illegal mining corridors, demonstrating the state’s growing resolve to reclaim forests and rivers from environmental destruction.

Between 07:00 and 20:00 hours, the team moved through Atiwa West and Birim Central Municipalities, where they identified and disabled heavy-duty equipment being used to ravage the land. Along the Akyem Akropong stretch of the Atiwa West District, operatives uncovered a large roadside illegal mining complex containing four excavators and five gold-washing machines. Two (2) of the excavators were found with complete control units and monitors, which were immediately removed to render the machines unusable, while the remaining two (2) had already been stripped by the operators.

Later in the afternoon, at about 16:10 hours, the task force intercepted another active site in Akyem Oda within the Birim Central Municipality. At this location, an additional excavator positioned beside the main road was swiftly immobilised.

Investigations at both locations revealed extensive environmental devastation. Deep, water-filled pits, stretching over more than four acres of land, covered the landscape. Some of the excavations measured approximately two hundred (200) metres in width and eight (8) feet in depth, leaving behind dangerous, polluted craters that now threaten nearby waterways and farming activities. In total, three (3) excavators were successfully immobilised, with their control boards and monitors removed to prevent immediate reactivation. The machines were left on site due to the lack of available low-bed transport at the time of the operation.

Operational assessments by the task force indicate that the threat to the Birim and Ayensu river systems remains critically high. Intelligence gathered from the field suggests that many illegal operators merely retreat temporarily when enforcement teams are present, parking their machines a few hundred metres away and waiting for an opportunity to resume activities. This pattern has strengthened NAIMOS’s resolve to maintain sustained pressure rather than short-term interventions.

Despite these challenges, the operations have injected fear and uncertainty into illegal mining networks across the Eastern Region. The visibility, speed and precision of NAIMOS deployments have forced numerous operators to abandon sites mid-operation, disrupting supply chains and dismantling logistical networks that support the illegal trade.

NAIMOS has reaffirmed that its mission is far from over. With forests and critical river bodies such as the Birim and Ayensu still under threat, extended field presence remains a top priority. The Secretariat maintains that illegal mining is not only an environmental crime but a direct public health threat, contaminating food sources and water supplies through toxic chemicals used during gold extraction.

As the fight intensifies, the message from the field is unambiguous: NAIMOS remains firmly in control, and illegal miners have nowhere left to hide.

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