Colombia: Police making sustained efforts to slow illegal mining in Bolivar

The National Police seized 13 backhoes exercising illegal mining activities in rural municipalities of Monte Cristo and San Martin de Loba. In order to counter the illegal mining activities in Southern Bolivar due to irreparable environmental damage that occurs to the ecosystem, the National Police and develops preventive actions framed in operational strategies related to counter this scourge. In the last hours uniformed officers assigned to the Criminal Investigation Branch (SIJIN) and the Police Mobile Squadron (EMCAR) with the support of the Air Service of the National Police reached the rural municipalities of Monte Cristo and San Martin de Loba in order to give a blow to the illegal mining activity in this region of the department in the context of “Operation SHIELD IX”. The procedure involved three uniformed illegal mines and seized 13 machines operating backhoes who performed the ground in search of gold, also found large quantities of chemical inputs and elements like classifiers, pumps, which are used for ore processing .

From the air you can see the magnitude of large tracts of natural forests that have become quarries and pollution of the watersheds of rivers and streams to the spill of chemical to which people are exposed living in municipalities and nearby towns, this means an irreparable damage to nature and the environment. Permanently panels of the National Police in the company of environmental authorities and civil authorities carried on flights in order to detect which are operated backhoes for this illegal activity. Read Article