Top: A portion of one of two mines that Gee Mining Resources Group Limited operates in Tartuken, River Gee County, that is outside its authorized claim. The DayLight/Prince Copeland
By Prince Copeland, for The DayLight
- One company, RAC Incorporated, has an MoU with a River Gee community, while another, Gee Mining Resources Ltd, conducts the operations
- Satellite imagery shows that the operations are outside Gee Mining’s two claims in the Nyeniwroken District, a violation of the Minerals and Mining Law
- RAC’s business registration certificate expired on Independence Day last year. However, it was issued an exploration license. Randy Scott, RAC’s majority shareholder, is one of Liberia’s most notorious miners
- The evidence suggests that Nelson Worjolo, Gee Mining’s owner, is fronting for a non-Liberian
- Townspeople benefit from dredging activities on the Gee River next to Gee Mining’s claims, and right under a local Ministry of Mines agent’s nose
TARTUKEN, River Gee County – Towering trees background huge sand mounds, water-filled pits, earthmovers, plastic barrels and a fuel tank. Mineworkers operate machines, digging through the brown earth. Pipes transport water from a nearby river to large, makeshift plants, where gold nuggets are trapped in inclined carpets.
This goldfield in Tartuken, Nyeniwroken District, looks like one of River Gee’s 48 active regulated mines. However, official documents, satellite imagery, a Ministry of Mines repository, and interviews proved otherwise. Turns out, the mine is illegal and is linked to one of Liberia’s most notorious miners.
Our story starts on July 10 last year, when RAC Incorporated, owned by a man named Randy Scott, signed an MoU with Tartuken’s chiefs and elders. In the document, RAC promised to build a guesthouse, a clinic and pay the community US$500 each month, among other things.
The company is delivering on its promises. This reporter documented three hand pumps, the five-bedroom guesthouse, while the elders confirmed that RAC paid monthly fees, including US$100 each for six teachers.
But the reporter noted a red flag when he interviewed townspeople. RAC had signed the MoU on behalf of Gee Mining Resources Group, a five-month-old company with no prior mining experience. Nelson Worjolo, Gee Mining’s owner, signed the document for Scott.
Confronted with the finding, Scott confirmed the information in a phone interview with the reporter. He disclosed that Gee Mining conducted the actual mining, while RAC handled community projects.
“Yes, Gee Mining and RAC are in partnership. They are the same,” Scott, who holds 95 percent of RAC’s shares, phoned this reporter.
Worjolo also confirmed the inconsistency. He said RAC had intended to conduct the operation but it had a “small issue,” so Scott contacted him. He had spoken with the community about correcting the MoU but suspicious locals refused. He would rectify the issue in the coming weeks.
Elijah Toe, an elder who signed the MoU, denies Worjolo’s story. “No, they never came back to tell the townspeople that they were changing the company’s name from RAC to Gee Mining,” said Toe.
Myers Moyan, a Tartuken elder, corroborated Toe’s comments. “They didn’t tell us the elders the difference [between the two companies],” Moyan said.
‘Hold the ground’
Seeking the truth, the reporter turned to RAC and Gee Mining’s documents and the Ministry of Mines and Energy repository.
The search proved Gee Mining had two medium-scale or class ‘B’ gold licenses in the Tartuken area, and RAC Incorporated’s only license is in Zorzor, Lofa County. So, RAC truly signed the MoU but Gee Mining conducted the operation, a red flag.
But the repository shows that the Tartuken MoU was signed at least six months before the licenses were issued, and three months before Gee Mining prospected the area.
Worjolo said they signed the MoU that early because it was part of the requirements for the licenses. Asked why he signed the MoU before prospecting, he said they were sure the area had gold, which is not a requirement but is not illegal. “We did that to hold the ground first before prospecting,” Worjolo said.
Next, the reporter reviewed RAC and Gee Mining’s business registration certificate. Interestingly, RAC’s business registration certificate had expired on Independence Day last year and has not been renewed as of August 5. This means that RAC was ineligible for the gold-exploration license it was awarded in January for Lofa County.
Gee Mining’s business registration certificate and article of incorporation identify it as a Liberian company. However, the ministry’s repository recognizes it as a “Liberian and foreign-owned.” This appears to explain why Worjolo said he needed to talk to his boss in Monrovia before talking to us. The evidence suggests he is fronting for a mysterious non-Liberian.
Worjolo did not respond to queries for comments about his company’s ownership.
Outside the claims
Now suspicious of everything, the reporter decided to focus on the mine’s location. Was the digging inside or outside Gee Mining’s claims? Is the claim this close to the river?
To answer those questions, the reporter turned once more to the Ministry of Mines’ repository. There, the ministry stores maps of all medium and large mining claims. Those maps come with the shapes of the claims and coordinates, imaginary vertical and horizontal lines called longitudes and latitudes.
Armed with that information, the reporter took the photographs fitted with Gee Mining’s goldfield coordinates and presented them to a DayLight geolocation expert.
The expert uploaded the data into a certain software. Utilizing data from the Liberia Institute for Statistics and Geoinformation Services (LISGIS), the expert found the location. Then he drew up a map with Google Earth, a computer program that uses satellite imagery.
The map established that the mine the reporter photographed was at least 1,000 meters away from Gee Mining’s claims. Even a second mine the reporter snapped was just outside the company’s other claim.
Confronted with this evidence, Worjolo said it was “not to my knowledge” that his operations were outside the authorized locations.
Scott, on the other hand, suggested that Gee Mining had a small-scale license for the operations in question. However, the repository shows that neither RAC nor Gee Mining has a small-scale or class ‘C’ mining license. Even if it did, earthmovers are outlawed in small-scale claims with soft or sandy grounds as Tartuken.
Mining outside one’s claim is a criminal offense, according to the Minerals and Mining Law. Violators face a US$2,000 fine, up to 24 months in prison, or both fine and term upon conviction by a court. The penalties could be harsher if prosecutors increased the charges.
Dredges on the river
RAC/Gee Mining’s illegal mines lie next to the Gee River, after which the county got its name in 2000. Gee or Chee means “leopard” in the Grebo language, but there was no sighting of the critically endangered big cat. Instead, four dredges, rafts made of plastic barrels with machines used to suck sediments from water, decorated the muddy river.
This alerted the reporter, who was aware that dredging had been banned since 2019 due to its associated environmental harms. From that moment, the reporter’s attention switched from land to water, and the mystery began to unravel instantly.
The miners operating the dredges said that they paid Tartuken’s locals a weekly fee they would not say. Chiefs and elders corroborated their claim. “It is true they were asked to pay L$15,000 per canoe (dredge) but they accepted to pay L$10,000 per canoe. We have only received L$30,000, which is equivalent to three canoes,” said Paul Kity, an elder spokesman.
The dredge operators said they paid the RAC/Gee Mining an undisclosed amount weekly. They also paid one gram of gold or L$20,000 (US$100) monthly to Tanneh Borteh, the ministry’s agent for that region.
“If we are not paying anything, I will tell you, but we are paying dues to the mining agent, the town people, and the claim agent too,” said Habib Zigi, a Ghanaian miner who operates two dredges.
Worjolo, RAC/Gee Mining’s owner, denies Zigi’s claim. He said he had driven the dredgers from the area on multiple occasions, but they always returned.
Similarly, Borteh, the ministry’s agent, who also denies any wrongdoing, said the same thing. “I went there and I told them to leave the water, ‘I don’t want you to lose your properties.’ Since then, I have not gone there,” Borteh said via mobile phone.
Notorious illegal miner
Based on Gee Mining’s legal documents and a desk review, Tartuken could be Worjolo’s first known illegal mining operation. However, it only adds to Scott’s brushes with the law.
In 2023, a DayLight investigation found that Urban and Rural Services, a company Scott has ties with, operated an illegal gold mine in Todee, with the aid of Montserrado County officials. It found that the company ran a full-scale mining operation with a prospecting license.
A follow-up investigation established that the license had expired and that the company had evaded taxes. Scott claimed that the license overstayed due to the coronavirus, though the pandemic had no such impact on the industry. Except for the involvement of two companies, Scott’s Todee illegal operations bear a striking resemblance to his Tartuken illicit activities.
A year after Todee, Scott was involved in a US$48.8 million lawsuit in Belle Yalla, Gbarpolu County. It was what Worjolo referenced in explaining why Gee Mining stepped in for RAC, though it signed the Tartuken MoU.
Perhaps the largest illegal mining scandal in Liberia’s history, Scott, Gao Feng, a Chinese nicknamed “the real minister,” and other people, allegedly encroached on another company’s mine. Scott was accused of defrauding the Liberian government of nearly US$12 million, according to a Ministry of Justice estimate.
Scott and the other suspects were accused of economic sabotage, tax evasion, criminal conspiracy and environmental degradation. In January last year, a man in his 20s drowned in a mine pit that mineworkers had abandoned in the community.
This story was a production of the Community of Forest and Environmental Journalists of Liberia (CoFEJ).
