Three officers of the Operation Vanguard (OV) team have been arrested on charges of bribery and corruption.

OV is a military-police joint task force set up by the government in the year 2017 to combat illegal mining, better known as ‘galamsey.’

The arrested officers include a serving military officer at the Tamale Air Force Base, Sergeant Mathew Ansu, who was a member of Vanguard Four Operation.

The others are Lance Corporal Samuel Arhinful and Sergeant Collins Baffour Gyawu, who serve at at Achiase District Police Command and Cape Coast Regional CID respectively.

According to the Public Relations Officer (PRO) of OV, Captain Edward Senanu Akakpo, who confirmed the arrest, said L/Corporal Samuel Arhinful, popularly known as Commander Sammy, was the leader of the extortion group until their arrest.

He added that the suspects were arrested at Gold Finger Spot in Obuasi in the Ashanti Region.

Other officers, in the evening of Wednesday, November 7, 2018, laid ambush following a tip-off.

Information available shows that the suspects demanded monies or received payments from some miners on a weekly or monthly basis, which protected their victims from being arrested for illegal mining activities.

All the suspects have since been sent to the military and police headquarters in Accra for further investigations and action by their respective institutions.