The National Anti-Illegal Mining Operations Secretariat (NAIMOS) destroyed 1,970 chanfangs and more than 800 temporary structures during a four-month enforcement campaign across eight regions of Ghana, Graphic Online reports.
Colonel K. S. Appiah, the secretariat's Director of Operations, disclosed the figures at a press briefing in Accra on Thursday, October 22, 2026. He said the work ran from June 13 to September 30, 2026, and covered roughly 50,662 kilometres through raids, patrols on rivers and reconnaissance.
According to Graphic Online, the task forces carried out 738 operations in the Western, Western North, Central, Eastern, Ashanti, Bono, Savannah and Northern regions. Alongside the destroyed equipment, teams recovered 74 firearms and 551 rounds of ammunition, as well as excavators, water pumps and vehicles. People arrested during the period were handed over to the relevant authorities.
Why it matters
Illegal small-scale mining, locally known as galamsey, has become one of Ghana's most contested public issues, tied to polluted rivers, damaged farmland and lost forest cover. The scale of the latest figures gives the public a rare, concrete measure of enforcement activity, and the secretariat's stated shift toward suppliers and financiers signals a change in how the state intends to fight it.
The briefing also comes amid wider scrutiny of the sector. Reuters has reported on how the gold boom is driving tree loss from Ghana to the Amazon, while GhanaWeb carried comments from Denis Gyeyir arguing that small-scale miners need support rather than only licences and taxes. Asaase Radio reported criticism from Awula Serwah, who said successive governments, whether NDC or NPP, bear responsibility for the galamsey problem. Separate reporting by the Ghanaian Times described the Subri Forest Reserve as under pressure, with 20 suspected illegal miners arrested in a crackdown there.
A shift toward suppliers and facilitators
Colonel Appiah said the secretariat would now aim at the people who equip and enable the miners, rather than concentrating solely on those working at the sites.
"Our operational focus will continue to target the equipment, suppliers, and facilitators who sustain illegal mining operations," he said, according to Graphic Online.
He said intelligence work, field enforcement and investigations would be run together so that evidence collected during raids holds up in court. Officers, he added, have been told to stay within their legal powers and to protect evidence, while retaining the right to defend themselves when attacked.
The operations director described the campaign as a long one rather than a short burst. He explained that teams sometimes have to burn or break up machinery on site because poor roads make it impossible to move equipment away from rivers.
"The fight against illegal mining is a marathon, and we are poised to go through this race to ensure that we take out all illegal mining infrastructure on our river bodies," he said.
How success will be judged
Colonel Appiah set out several tests for the campaign: whether cleared sites stay clear, whether illegal activity falls, whether cases move forward through the courts, and whether environmental recovery can be measured. He said the secretariat would work with environmental and water agencies to assess what its interventions have achieved.
He also credited the public with helping. Over the past two months, he said, the secretariat received many reports, some including GPS coordinates and contact details, which allowed teams to be sent to areas under threat.
"We've received a lot of whistleblowing from various quarters where people call, send GPS locations, provide points of contact, and we have sent teams to prevent illegal mining in certain areas," he said.
He urged members of the public to keep passing on reliable information.
Watch for whether the secretariat publishes follow-up data on prosecutions and on the condition of cleared river bodies, and whether the promised focus on equipment dealers and financiers produces cases beyond the mining sites themselves.
