JEDEPO, SINOE COUNTY—JULY 14, 2025: In a swift move to safeguard the Country’s mineral resources and promote sustainable mining practices, the Ministry of Mines and Energy has shut down a massive illicit mining operation in Pokpaken, Jedepo, Sinoe County, and has issued a seizure order of an excavator that was being used to perpetrate the illegal activities.
A Mines and Energy Ministry team led by the Director of Mines Alwell Aloysius Carr, effected the compliance enforcement action during the weekend of July 12, 2025, in a response from some townspeople through a whistleblower who alarmed that illicit mining by some unscrupulous individuals were causing environmental degradation and subjecting the mineral potential of the community to abuse by illicit miners.
According to the Director of Mines, the Ministry’s team dispatched to look into complaints from some Jedepo residents gathered that while some people in the area were against the illegal and illicit mining activities in their community, other kinsmen from the same district were obstructing genuine efforts to combat the situation by colluding with the perpetrators. Evading prosecution for their illegal extraction of the Country’s mineral resources, Director Carr and team reported that the illicit miners fled the community upon their [MME] arrival to clampdown on their illegal operation, making away with keys to the excavator spotted on site.
The Ministry has instructed its mineral inspectors and the Mining Agent in Jedepo District with the collaboration of state security to ensure that the excavator remains grounded and increase their monitoring and supervision of mining activities in the area to avoid any resumption of such illegal operations.
In a related development, the Ministry of Mines and Energy has halted a massive illegal mining of laterite within the bailiwick of the University of Liberia Fendell campus. The Ministry made this discovery on July 14, 2025, when four truck-loads of the mineral were seen being transported from the vicinity of the state-owned university.
The Ministry of Mines and Energy has taken seize of this illegal act and confiscated keys to the four trucks and a Loader, and arrested the perpetrators with collaboration from state security officers.
Director of Mines Alwell Aloysius Carr who was part of the Ministry’s team that unearthed the illegal laterite mining around the Fendell campus, has assured the public of a robust stance in the fight against all acts of illicit and illegal mining across the Country, and commended Mines and Energy Minister Wilmot Paye for his administration’s support to the Compliance Enforcement Team, which the Director noted, is ensuring that technicians are capacitated to implement their tasks of properly regulating the mining sector.
Director Carr described the daring act of carrying out laterite mining in the full glare of the University’s vicinity as a grave violation of the Minerals and Mining Law of Liberia, which he wants citizens of the Country desist from doing and respect legal frameworks that grant mineral rights to those interested in doing business in the mining sector.
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