A shadow economy of illegal dredging is tearing through Sierra Leone’s rivers, powered by organised cross-border crime networks, financed in part by foreign investors, and quietly tolerated by some local communities.
An investigation has uncovered that many of the dredging operations, recently targeted by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), are controlled or staffed by foreign nationals—predominantly Chinese, Indians, Liberians, and Ghanaians—working in collusion with Sierra Leonean partners. Over 190 dredges have been destroyed in just the latest sweep against this illicit trade.
EPA officials say these riverbed miners are “not the typical small-scale operators” but highly organised, with heavy machinery, deep-pocketed backers, and the ability to quickly relocate to evade law enforcement.
The lure is gold—and the profits are huge. But the cost is devastating: toxic sediment clouds once-pristine waters, aquatic life dies off, riverbanks collapse, and communities downstream are left with poisoned drinking water.
Disturbingly, some residents have welcomed the dredgers, seeing them as a source of jobs and quick cash. “They buy food, they rent rooms, they pay people to work,” one local source admitted. “People don’t want to lose that.”
Environmental campaigners warn that unless Sierra Leone strikes at the financiers and enablers—both foreign and domestic—the destruction will outpace enforcement. “Destroying dredges is just treating the symptom,” said one activist. “The disease is money, corruption, and impunity.”
If nothing changes, the future is bleak: within a decade, vast stretches of Sierra Leone’s rivers could be biologically dead, fish populations wiped out, and once-lush farmlands turned barren from polluted water. River-dependent communities could be forced to migrate, sparking new waves of rural displacement. And while the rivers die, the gold gangs—protected by corruption, poverty, and foreign capital—will grow richer, leaving Sierra Leone to inherit the environmental debt.
By Joe Turay
