BBC Chinese recently reported that Ghana’s Deputy Minister of Information announced that the government expelled 4,700 illegal gold miners last year. The majority of these illegal miners were Chinese citizens. Ghana’s Special Forces had arrested all these people. In Ghana, small scale gold mining is legal. However, this rule does not apply to foreigners. Over the past several years, with the increase in the international price of gold, a large number of foreign miners have gone to Ghana to mine for gold. The Chinese Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Wang Yi, visited Ghana last month. Wang promised that the Chinese government will assist in resolving the issue of the large number of Chinese gold miners. In addition to the Chinese, those expelled also included people from Nigeria, Russia, and South Africa.
Source: BBC Chinese, January 23, 2014
http://www.bbc.co.uk/zhongwen/simp/world/2014/01/140123_brief_ghana_china_workers.shtml