The troops have made arrests and confiscated machinery in the municipalities of Coyaima and Chaparral, which continues to counter environmental crimes in the department.
In the first result of the military operation carried out in the municipality of Coyaima, by soldiers of the Light Infantry Battalion No. 17 General Domingo Caicedo, of the Sixth Brigade, in coordination with the National Police and Cortolima, it was possible to arrest three individuals who were carrying out illicit gold mining.
An engine, 20 meters of hose and a classifier device were found by troops at the place, with which they extracted about 100 grams of gold monthly, with a commercial cost of 45 million pesos.
In another sector of the south of Tolima, in the village of El Queso, in the municipality of Chaparral, soldiers found a backhoe, a combustion engine, a metal classifier, 200 meters of suction hose and 100 gallons of DIESEL; in addition, troops reported the arrests of four people who were carrying out illegal mineral exploitation.
By means of this result of the military operation it was possible to produce a loss to illicit activities in 462 million pesos in machinery; in the same way, an estimated extraction capacity of 3000 grams of gold per month, whose value in the formal trade amounts to 1,653,513,000 pesos, is stopped. This operation directly hits the finances of the GAO-r FARC Western Bloc Commander Isaías Pardo, Structure Ismael Ruiz.
The individuals and the machinery were put into custody of the authority for the crimes of illicit exploitation of mining deposits.
Thanks to this power of the military operation, the soldiers of the Sixth Brigade mitigate a serious loss to the natural resources of the region, in the same way they stop the degradation of the vegetation layer, the indiscriminate removal of subsoil and the contamination of local water sources, by the potential dumping of fuels and heavy sediments, so troops stop the long-term ecological damage to the ecosystem.
Source: Press - National Army
