Ghana’s Ashanti Region On October 23, 2025, NAIMOS and the Ashanti Regional Security Council (REGSEC) conducted a full-scale operation in the Oda River Forest Reserve as part of a significant intelligence-driven enforcement activity that led to the arrest of several suspects. The squad dismantled their illicit mining infrastructure and confiscated cash and firearms.
Targeting a deeply established illicit mining community known as “galamsey” deep within the forest reserve, the task group arrived early in the morning.
The complex featured a network of tented and wooden buildings, sluice pits, heavy machinery, and ore-processing burners, according to NAIMOS officials. To avoid reoccupation, all were destroyed or otherwise rendered unusable.
When NAIMOS conducted the raid, they detained:
- Fifteen (15) people are suspected of participating in illicit mining activities.
- Nine (9) people posed as Ghana National Security Service agents, including one who was discovered wearing a khaki uniform and carrying a handcuff, a pump-action shotgun, a plastic gun, and a pistol with three rounds of ammo.
- Two (2) people were apprehended during a bribery attempt in which a total of GHS 120,000 was seized in an effort to pay off the miners who had been arrested.
Following the arrests, two operatives whose names coincided with those of current or former security-service personnel were the subject of disciplinary investigations by the National Security Coordinating Secretariat (NSCS), which also revoked the appointment of one operative who was found to have ties to the impostor group.
An important watershed and habitat in the Ashanti Region is the Oda River Forest Reserve. Because of the severe environmental consequences—deforestation, river sedimentation, mercury and cyanide pollution—as well as the fact that illicit mining operations usually involve armed elements, exploitation, and organized crime, the intrusion of illegal miners has long been a concern.
In statements made public through NAIMOS, officials stressed the zero-tolerance attitude for illicit mining and the intention to track down criminals at every level of government, including financiers, middlemen, local guardians, and dishonest individuals working in state organizations. They added that demolishing the occupying tents and mining infrastructure marks a change from just arresting miners to upsetting the entire operational environment.
The ‘Big Men’ Behind Galamsey Will Soon Be Named
Investigations are still being conducted to know who owns the confiscated equipment, who is in charge of the phony security uniforms, and where the bribery money came from. If proven guilty, the implicated security-service personnel might be prosecuted.
NAIMOS has reaffirmed that community participation and surveillance would be increased, and that follow-up operations will be conducted in other vulnerable reserves throughout Ghana.
The re-establishment of governmental presence in the cleared zones to prevent re-occupation, transparent punishment of individuals responsible for the activity, and monitoring of the restoration of the disturbed land are all necessary for long-term success, observers warn.
