West Bangka Police Name 2 Illegal Mining Suspects At Oil Palm Plantation

West Bangka Resort Police arrested the perpetrators of illegal mining and confiscated a number of evidences at the oil palm plantation site in Mayang Village, Simpangterip. (ANTARA/HO-Humas West Bangka Police)

West Bangka Resort Police, Bangka Belitung Islands have named two suspects in handling the illegal tin mining case at the company's oil palm plantation site in Mayang Village, Simpangteritip District.

"We arrested the two tin mining actors on Tuesday (23/1) afternoon and in this investigation process, we have named them suspects," said Head of Criminal Investigation Unit of West Bangka Police AKP Ecky Widi Prawira as reported by ANTARA, Thursday, January 25.

The police initially received information regarding the existence of tin ore mining activities carried out by residents in the oil palm plantation block D in the Mayang Village area.

Following up on this information, the police moved to the location to conduct an investigation and find a number of miners who were carrying out mining activities.

When met by officers, the miner could not show a mining business license and was subsequently arrested for further processing in accordance with applicable law.

Two perpetrators with the initials Su (25) a resident of Simpangterip and Ru (40) a resident of Kelapa were arrested and then taken to the West Bangka Police Headquarters.

The police also found a number of evidences of mining equipment, in the form of two units of engines, hoses, filter carpets, jerry cans and drums used by the perpetrators to work.

"In this control, we initially arrested five people and named two mining machine owners as suspects in the illegal mining case," he said.

Based on information excavation carried out by the West Bangka Police, so far the oil palm plantation company where mining activities were found has never given permission to residents to carry out mining in the right to use their business.