Authored by Darren Taylor via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
JOHANNESBURG—Thousands of Chinese citizens remain in Ghana to mine gold illegally, despite a crackdown by authorities in Africa’s largest producer of the precious metal, according to law enforcement agencies in the capital, Accra.
They say the illegal miners appear to be taking advantage of the record-high gold price, which hit $3,500 in April, with much of the illicit metal being smuggled back to China.
Organized crime groups, sometimes headed by what appear to be Chinese businesspeople, are flooding Ghana with sophisticated machinery to mine gold at scales never seen before in some areas, resulting in widespread environmental damage and fueling unemployment, according to one expert who recently spoke to The Epoch Times.
According to several analysts, Chinese involvement in illegal mining in Ghana and across Africa reveals Beijing’s real motive for its increasingly strong presence on the continent: to exploit Africa’s natural resources.
With Ghana’s police now often arresting Chinese citizens accused of stealing gold, relations between President John Mahama’s administration and Beijing are strained.
Ghanaian officials have said the Chinese regime isn’t doing enough to prevent its nationals from committing crimes in one of West Africa’s strongest economies.
But China’s ambassador in Ghana is accusing locals of “galamsey,” as it’s known in the region, or small-scale illegal gold mining, and of drawing Chinese workers to Africa.
“The Chinese who are getting arrested are migrant workers who have come here to make a living,” Chinese Ambassador Tong Defa told The Epoch Times.
Grace Ansah-Akrofi, director of the Ghana Police Service’s Public Affairs, has a different view.
“While there are cases like those mentioned by the ambassador, it’s a bit far-fetched to say that it’s Ghanaian masterminds who are importing Chinese to commit crimes,” she told The Epoch Times. “We have our own people who are desperate enough to commit crimes.
“Our criminals are not going to call on [the] Chinese to do their work. It doesn’t make sense.”
Enoch Aikins, a researcher at South Africa’s Institute for Security Studies, traces the roots of Ghana’s galamsey crisis to a period between 2008 and 2013, when he said more than 50,000 Chinese entered the country to mine gold illegally.
“Ever since then, there has been a strong Chinese element in these kinds of crimes in Ghana; they originally came here because they knew the laws were lax, and they also bribed their way out of trouble,” Aikins told The Epoch Times.
“But now that things are tightening up and they find they are being pushed out of an industry that makes them rich, they are angry.”
In 2023, the government-mandated Inter-Ministerial Committee on Illegal Mining released a report that implicated several government officials in illegal mining.
The Mahama administration says its Office of the Special Prosecutor is investigating information in the report.
Ghana is Africa’s biggest gold producer, and the sixth-largest in the world, reporting an output of 151 metric tons in 2024, according to information from the Ghana Gold Board obtained by The Epoch Times.
About a third of its production comes from artisanal mining, some of it illegal, said Aikins.
Demand for gold, seen as a stable investment in times of economic uncertainty, has recently reached unprecedented highs, and costs almost $3,300 per ounce as of Aug. 1.
On the back of this, Chinese companies are investing billions of dollars in Ghana’s gold sector, said government spokesperson Felix Ofosu.
“We are grateful for the Chinese contribution to our economy, but surely this doesn’t mean we ignore abuses committed by Chinese citizens,” he told The Epoch Times.
In June, the Geneva-based Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC) released a report detailing how foreign nationals, particularly from China and Burkina Faso, have introduced new technologies and machinery to Ghana that are increasing gold output while contributing to environmental harm.
The GI-TOC investigation said foreigners, including Chinese, are working in concert with traditional chiefs and political elites to “benefit from or enable illicit mining operations.”
“Criminal groups are allegedly engaging in gold smuggling and money laundering through casinos and other businesses,” said the independent policy research institute.
Ofosu said court cases and investigations have revealed that “Chinese criminals are the ones who finance locals and give them technical support” to facilitate illegal mining.
He pointed to the case of En “Aisha” Huang, known in Ghana as the “Galamsey Queen.”
Deported several times between 2018 and 2022, Huang kept returning “because she couldn’t resist the lure” of Ghana’s gold, said Ansah-Akrofi.
In December 2023, Huang was sentenced to 4.5 years in prison and ordered to pay a $4,000 fine for running an illegal gold mining syndicate.
James Boafo, an expert in the environmental effects of illegal mining at Ghana’s University of Cape Coast, told The Epoch Times that “China’s hand is far from hidden” in the “destruction” happening in his country.
“Machinery brought into Ghana from China is causing a lot of damage,” he said. “Ghana’s traditional small-scale miners use very basic tools to extract gold, so they can reach only shallow depths.
“But these days, illegal miners are able to go very deep in the earth, thanks to excavators and bulldozers supplied by Chinese partners.
“In Ghana, now we have many polluted rivers because of this. Our water quality is seriously degraded, and drinking it is a problem.”
He added that criminal operations use rivers to sift gold dust and nuggets from the sediment.
“This activity causes entire river systems, across many thousands of kilometres, to be muddy,” Boafo said. “Then the operators use toxic substances like lead and mercury to take the gold from the water. Whether they are Chinese or Africans, they just don’t care.”
He said illegal mining operations fronted by the Chinese are also threatening Ghana’s cocoa industry.
“They destroy lands and forests and plantations,” Boafo said.
Well-resourced Chinese citizens are outcompeting local artisanal miners, who are consequently falling into unemployment and poverty, he noted.
Professor Gladys Ansah, who has investigated illegal mining for the University of Ghana, said Mahama’s government “should not let up” in its arrests and prosecutions of illegal miners, no matter their nationalities.
“Over the years, we’ve had a lot of committees and programs focused on getting rid of this,” she told The Epoch Times. “But they weren’t so effective, partly because our government didn’t want to offend China; so the Chinese were treated with kid gloves.”
As far back as 2013, Ansah said, a joint task force of military and police arrested 4,500 Chinese miners.
“They weren’t prosecuted; they were deported, and we paid for it because a lot of them came back and many are still here,” she said.
South African foreign policy analyst, Sanusha Naidu, told The Epoch Times that Chinese links to illegal harvesting of metals and minerals are “cementing” a growing perception in the continent that Beijing’s “real motive for being in Africa in such a big way is to exploit natural resources, by whatever means possible.”
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