It has emerged that some Chinese women who are allegedly engaged in illegal mining (galamsey), across the country have become untouchable because they have secret sexual video tapes that they allegedly use to blackmail some powerful men in Ghana.
This was revealed last Saturday on Joy FM/Multi TV news analysis programme, ‘Newsfile’ by veteran journalist, Abdul Malik Kweku Baako, managing editor of the New Crusading Guide newspaper.
Mr. Baako claimed these women about three of them have video and audio recordings of powerful politicians and security officers in Ghana.
The senior journalist said the female Chinese have built a network of influence in high places in the country which they rely on for protection whilst engaging in illegal mining.
When these women came to Ghana they were reportedly involved in some other businesses but soon allegedly took to galamsey operation and prostitution, and have been charging GH¢100 per service in the Western Region.
Mr. Baako said the Chinese ladies secretly recorded their sexual encounters with influential people and in some cases, brought in some young Chinese women who slept with these men and collected evidence which is now being used to blackmail them.
One Asia Huang, popularly known as Aisha, Mr. Baako noted, had been notorious for her illegal mining activities at Bepotenten in the Ashanti Region, despite a ban on illegal mining by the Minister for Lands, Minerals and Natural Resources, John Peter Amewu. Aisha’s workers have continued to defy the ban and mine with impunity, he revealed.
According to information, four of Aisha’s workers namely, Hainan Gao, 26; Lu Qi Jun, 39; Gao Jin Cheng, 45 and Zhang Zhi Pen, 23, were arrested last Friday night whilst mining at her site.
Reports say the suspects told immigration officers that they were working on Aisha’s instructions.
Baako’s ‘Bomb’
“…She’s got accomplices, the other one is called Monica, the other, the name has slipped me because it’s a Chinese name. Part of their strength is that they built up a certain system of blackmailing. They are women so I’m not going to use certain words, I’m not going to say certain things.
“As to when they came into town, what they intend to do, who they were, what they were, had nothing to do with galamsey, but gradually they moved from that particular trade into galamsey.
“They have video and audio recordings of people who are powerful, videos of people who we have entrusted with responsibilities to protect us as a people. That’s how dangerous the game is and that is where the strength and power of these Chinese women are coming from,” he said.
In August last year, the locals, mostly farmers, demonstrated because the Chinese had taken over their cocoa farms and refused to pay the appropriate compensations.
“We want to drive her away with the demonstration, she has taken over our cocoa farms,” one resident said.
“If you challenge her, she will go in for the police to come and arrest you and pack your things away. She has also done same to her own Chinese people and children have died in the open trenches of Aisha,” another resident told Joy News.
One woman said the family resorted to court in order to get a meagre amount as compensation for her mother’s farm.
The odikro of Bepotenten, Egya George Anane, where Asia is currently working, is equally said to be unhappy about the development.
“She is destroying the land and running over our source of drinking water with her huge equipment,” he said.
Mining exploration company, Volta Resources Limited, says Aisha has encroached 35 acres of their land and extracted GH¢1.5 million worth of gold.
Commenting on the arrests, Mr. Kweku Baako said the lady’s audacity is not strange.
Mr Baako has promised to release an explosive report on investigations dealing with galamsey soon, in which he cited officers of the Minerals Commission, Ghana Police Service, among others.
On the arrest, Mr. Kweku Baako, who revealed the secret cover-up by the previous NDC government, narrated further that Aisha was arrested three times by the previous government and released each time without a charge, obviously because some influential people intervened.
The senior journalist, who called for an immediate intervention by the government to stop them, added that Aisha and another, whom he named only as Monica, have connections in the current administration, as well.
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