Aisha Huang
AISHA Huang, the Chinese woman, who is on trial for engaging in illegal gold mining activities, is far from giving up her trade as she continues to exploit the land after enjoying a moment of freedom from prison.
A special operation on Monday by the inter-ministerial taskforce at a mining site at Bepotenten in the Amansie Central District of the Ashanti has led to the arrest of two assigns of the Chinese woman perceived as untouchable by residents of the community.
The team also seized six excavators at the mining site said to belong to Aisha Huang who has built a network of influence in high places in the country with her ‘woman power’ with which she and her gangs rely on to engage in illegal gold mining activities popularly known as galamsey.
Operatives of National Security, on July 30, 2016, arrested Aisha and seized her mining equipment for flouting mining laws, degrading lands and destroying water bodies.
She was later freed and her excavators released following an order by the then Ashanti Regional Security Council (REGSEC) when investigation of her alleged illegality was inconclusive.
She and her assigns had degraded lands, destroyed cocoa farms and polluted water bodies in several communities in the Amansie area when the security operatives raided the gold fields to impound her excavators and a pick-up vehicle that were being used for the illegal mining.
At Gyaaman village, the activities of the Chinese galamsey operator left six children dead after the victims got drowned in open pits left uncovered.
However, REGSEC found it expedient to release the four excavators and the Toyota pick-up vehicle to the galamsey miner to the chagrin of the local residents and owners of the mining concession.
In 2017, despite Government’s moratorium on galamsey operations across the country, the lady continuously carried on her illegal gold mining activities with impunity because she was alleged to be holding secrete sexual video tapes of some power brokers in the security services and some politicians which she intend to use to blackmail them.
The said secret video recordings and photos purported to be the sexual encounters between the Chinese galamsey queen, Aisha Huang and some top security officers and politicians in the country later popped up after the 32-year-old and four of her assigns were remanded in custody by an Accra High Court in May 2017.
In one of the videos, the woman purported to be Aisha graciously performed an act of blow job on a man whose face was not shown, but could be heard making hissing sounds in response.
The sex tapes and photos exposed the vulnerability of the country as men charged with the responsibility to protect it are so sentimental and prepared to trade off the nation’s wealth – underground minerals – for sex.
The Chinese woman has since resumed her seedy underground world of lucrative exploitation, accompanied with terror and fear, ravaging the environment and wrecking havocs on people’s cocoa farms right under the noses of security officers.
BACKGROUND
She was one of the Chinese nationals to descend on Ghana’s gold mine when news spread in the Asian country about the abundance of the precious mineral in the impoverished part of the Ashanti Region, Amansie Central District.
Her only problem initially was the anti-galamsey task force that would constantly chase her and other illegal miners from the fields.
One of such operations led by Roger Quarshie, a National Security operative, netted her excavators at Manso Tontokrom, a mining community noted for illegal gold mining operations in the Ashanti Region.
RESIDENTS ACCOUNT
However, farmers and local residents in communities such as Gyaaman, Bepotenten, Yawkarikrom and Subima, all in the Amansie Central District, said Aisha found a way around the problem after she invaded gold fields under police and military escort, encroaching on legally acquired concessions of mining companies.
Janet Addai Gyimah, former Assembly woman of Bepotenten Electoral Area, said the illegal activities of the Chinese woman galamseyer was no more cloaked in secrecy as she now used the state force and power to coerce cocoa farmers to surrender their lands to her for mining.
The ex-Assembly disclosed in an interview that Aisha’s hunt for the precious gems continued unabated, and she was encroaching on concessions belonging to legal entities, including the Volta Resources Limited,
According to Madam Janet, violence and confiscation of equipment were used by Aisha Huang to build fear in her victims, which development has made them believe that her protégé might be a powerbroker.
Opanin George Anane, Odikro of Bepotenten said the return of the Chinese fuelled speculation that she was indeed untouchable.
For the sub-chief, Aisha appears to understand her power and also its limits, having taken her galamsey operation into the Gyaaman community located on the road to Bepotenten where she mined and exhausted over 100 acres of land.
“She consorts with military and police, which has deepened suspicions surrounding her activities,” Odikro Anane told a team of journalists during a tour at the mining sites in 2016.
From Ernest Kofi Adu, Kumasi