(LĐ online) - After many days of monitoring and breaking in, Lam Dong Newspaper reporters investigated the rampant activities of an illegal sand mining pit in the border area between Bao Loc City and Bao Lam District.
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| 3 trucks entered the sand yard at the same time in the early afternoon of July 28. |
When night falls, the sound of pumps and excavators echoes throughout a corner of the forest. The large buckets of the excavators dig deep into the ground, bringing sand to the screening racks that are continuously pumped with water. The lights from the excavators appear and disappear, occasionally sweeping a bright area over the gradually rising sand piles.
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After many days of surveillance, at 7 pm on July 26, I decided to break into the illegal sand mining tunnel located in the middle of an acacia hill in Loc Tan commune (Bao Lam district).
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| 4 excavators gathered at the same time at guard tower number 3 at noon on July 23. |
To avoid detection, I had to turn off my motorbike lights and groped my way up the steep slope near the entrance to the sand pit in the pouring rain. After hiding my motorbike in a bush, I cautiously approached the entrance to the sand pit. Having observed the scene for many days, I quickly made my way to the path leading to a hill inside the sand pit.
The path was full of cobblestones, mud, and rainwater, causing my boots to sink so deep that I couldn’t lift my feet. In my dark blue raincoat, I blended in with the ferns and the rocky outcrops on the hillside, which made me feel a little more secure.
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| Panoramic view of illegal sand mining tunnel taken on July 25 |
In the black backpack on his back, there was a bun bought in a hurry this afternoon to stave off hunger in case he had to ambush overnight, a knife wrapped carefully in the pocket of his raincoat to clear away the bushes he had been hiding in the previous days and also partly intended for… self-defense.
As soon as I reached the top of the hill, the sound of the engine and the excavator echoed. I quickly lay down on the ground as the headlights from the digger in the distance swept past. After a while of adjusting and letting my eyes get used to the darkness, I chose a spot next to the fern bushes and started taking pictures. The rain made the screen constantly wet and blurry, I quickly wiped it with the towel I brought with me and continued working.
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| A truck enters the sand yard on July 22. |
At this time, about 10 meters below the sandbank in front of me, the location where I had identified a guardhouse hidden under a bamboo bush the previous days and which I had numbered as hut 2, the red excavator hidden behind a large rock continuously extended its bucket to scoop up a mixture of soil, rock and sand and pour it onto the sieve. The high-powered engine also continuously pumped water onto the sieve surface to separate the sand. Another yellow excavator scooped up the cleaned and sieved sand and piled it up next to it.
About 20 meters from where I was hiding, on the right corner, where there was a hut hidden behind a row of acacia trees and which I numbered as hut 3, 2 yellow excavators along with a sand pumping and screening machine were also operating similarly. The lights on the excavators rotated in the direction of the scoop, sweeping back and forth across the entire sandbank. Lightning and thunder occasionally lit up a corner of the sky.
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| After working through the night, the excavators were brought back to their hiding place on the morning of July 25. |
During the 5 hours at the sand pit, 4 excavators and 2 sand pumping and screening machines worked continuously without a break. The activities of digging, pouring the mixture onto the screen, scooping the washed sand and piling it up were repeated over and over again.
Occasionally, tractors and dump trucks would come to collect sand at night. Large buckets of sand, still wet, were hastily scooped onto the trucks. The rumbling sound of the trucks would go up the steep slope next to my hiding place to take the sand out.
At nearly 1am, the rain was cold, I decided to leave the sand tunnel with the rumbling of the machines showing no signs of stopping.
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| After a night of screening and washing, a large pile of sand was piled high on the morning of July 29. |
On the evening of July 26, I decided to set up a tent, a one-person tent that I had borrowed from a friend that afternoon. The tent was located on a hill about 100 meters from the sandbank. Just like the night before, the rain poured down on the tent accompanied by the howling wind due to the high hill, but the sound of the excavator and water pump sifting the sand was not overwhelmed by it.
Tonight, the mechanical activities at the sand mine also repeated the same sequence as the night before. At around 1am, the sound of the machines stopped temporarily but at 3am they resumed operation until 6am. After that, the excavators moved closer to the guard towers or into the acacia rows to hide, the sand screening racks were still left alone at the scene. After a night of almost continuous operation, the piles of white sand were piled up extremely high.
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It took me many days of observing the terrain to determine the entrances to the sand tunnel. From the end of Phan Chu Trinh Street (Loc Tien Ward, Bao Loc City), there are two branches that embrace this sand tunnel and these are also the two main routes for transporting smuggled sand from the site. Both routes have to go through steep, rocky slopes.
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| Vehicles entering the sand yard on the morning of August 3 |
From the end of Phan Chu Trinh Street, if you go straight, you will see a triangular landmark indicating the border area between Loc Tien Ward, Loc Chau Commune of Bao Loc City and Loc Tan Commune of Bao Lam District. This is also the starting point of the road leading down to the sand pit and meeting guardhouse number 1. If you turn left towards Joton Kaolin Company, you will also pass the high slope leading down to the sand pit and meet guardhouse number 2. Guardhouse number 3 is located in the middle of the sandbank, which is also the place for drivers to rest, eat and gather fuel.
To access this illegal sand pit, I chose the location of the surrounding high hills. Depending on the hill, I could observe the activities of only one corner of the sand pit through the camera's 10x or 20x zoom lens. There were days when, from one monitoring angle, my camera recorded all 4 excavators, 1 tractor and a number of motorbikes present at the same time at guard tower number 3.
The rule of operation at this sand mine is that sand digging and screening mainly takes place at night, usually starting at 6pm and ending at 6am. Sand transportation operates both day and night, with the peak time being at dusk.
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| After being loaded with sand, the heavy trucks struggled to climb the steep slope on the morning of August 3. |
On July 22 and 23, mining and transportation activities at the sandbank took place normally. However, because it was the weekend, the frequency of transportation vehicles was lower.
On the afternoon of July 24, when I was riding my motorbike along a small, narrow path from the top of a hill back to the main road to return after a day of monitoring the sandbank, I was suddenly intercepted by three young men. Dressed as gardeners with an old motorbike, covered in a raincoat with only my boots visible, the young men looked at me suspiciously and followed the direction my motorbike was going.
After running for a while, from the opposite direction, another young man on a motorbike suddenly turned around and followed me. I remembered meeting this young man once when approaching the entrance to the sandbank a few days ago and asked me: "Did Mr. Tu call you in?". At that time, I answered evasively and left.
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| Close-up of a large dump truck of Quyet Hao carrying sand from the yard on July 29 |
To lose this young man, I suddenly turned around while driving on Phan Chu Trinh Street, then turned into an alley and zigzagged through many other alleys and roads before returning home.
On the morning of July 25, I returned to observe the sand pit from many locations, all activities here were quiet. After crawling through the locked gate leading to the sand pit, I observed a few excavators being brought near the guard towers or taken to the stream bank to hide. All day today, all digging and sand transporting activities stopped.
It was thought that once the incident was discovered, activities at this sandbank would stop for quite a while. However, just one day later, on July 26, activities here resumed as normal as if nothing had happened and have continued until now.
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| Quyet Hao 49C 22281 truck carrying sand to the store on To Huu street (Loc Son ward, Bao Loc city) on July 26. |
During the days of monitoring, I returned to many observation points on the hilltops every day to film and photograph the excavation activities and vehicles entering and leaving the sandbank, as well as to monitor many illegal sand trucks.
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My monitoring of the sandbank and sand transportation activities is not 24/7. However, every time I am here at any time of the day, I can record sand transportation activities from the bank. On average, every day and night, there are over 10 dump trucks of various types and tractors of various sizes entering and exiting the bank to collect sand.
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| Excavators and sand washing racks continuously operate during the night of July 26. |
After understanding the sand tunnel’s operating rules, I decided to follow it to determine where the trucks carrying the illegal sand were going. The first place I chose to hide to film the transport was a fern bush under an acacia forest, only about 15m from the entrance to the sand tunnel. Dense, wet due to the rain that had lasted for many days, and surrounded by mosquitoes were all that could describe my hiding place.
At around 3pm on July 26, two dump trucks with license plates 49C 22281 and 49C 25076 entered the sand tunnel. Both trucks had the name Quyet Hao on the front of the truck.
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| On August 7, at least 7 excavators were deployed at the sandbank. |
About 30 minutes later, two heavy vehicles climbed the hill, and from afar, I could hear the roar of the engine. From my observation position, I could see the vehicle stop right at the entrance. The driver climbed into the truck bed to cover it with a tarp, covering the sand that had been piled up on the bed. For some unknown reason, after covering it with a tarp, the driver climbed out of the vehicle and walked towards me to hide. I held my breath, lay on my back close to the ground, and quickly turned off my phone that was recording so that in case I was discovered, I could still keep the footage I had recorded many days before. A minute later, I slowly sat up and saw the driver had gotten into the car and left. Leaving my hiding place, I quickly got on my motorbike and followed this vehicle. In the following days, I also followed many other vehicles.
Although the sand dump is located in Loc Tan commune, Bao Lam district, the sand transportation route goes entirely through Loc Tien ward of Bao Loc city. The route of the vehicles is usually from the sand dump to Phan Chu Trinh street, to National Highway 20, then depending on where the dump is, the vehicles have different turns.
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| Illegal sand mining area seen from Google Map |
For Quyet Hao Building Materials Store, 3 vehicles with the name of this store often travel on National Highway 20 towards Da Lat City, then turn into Dai Binh intersection (Tran Hung Dao Street, Loc Son Ward, Bao Loc City) and dump sand at the store on To Huu Street. This is also the vehicle with the highest frequency of transporting sand during the days I followed this sand site.
Some vehicles transport sand towards the southern bypass, then turn onto Lam Son Street (Loc Son Ward) to dump sand for a construction materials store there; or drive towards Loc Thanh Commune (Bao Lam District) to dump sand for Nam Phuong Construction Materials Store; to Loc Nam Commune (Bao Lam District) to dump sand for Kim Thinh Construction Materials Store...
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| A truck dumps sand at a production site of ball culverts and concrete pillars on Le Phung Hieu alley (Loc Tien ward) on the evening of August 7. |
Another direction is for vehicles from the sandbank to Phan Chu Trinh, then turn left onto Phan Dinh Phung Street and head towards Nam Phuong Lake (Bao Loc City) to dump sand at a gathering place there, or towards Loc Phu Commune (Bao Lam District) to dump sand for a construction materials store in the area. In addition, there are many other tractors and dump trucks transporting sand to several locations in Loc Tien Ward, Ward 2 (Bao Loc City).
My diary for more than half a month recorded that Quyet Hao's 3 vehicles with license plates 49C 25076, 49C 25067, 49C 22281 had entered and exited the sand transport yard no less than 40 times. It was also Quyet Hao's vehicle that regularly transported sand and other materials within this mining tunnel.
In particular, after collecting sand, some vehicles had to travel about 30 - 40 km to reach the dumping site in Bao Lam district, such as: Vehicle 49X 8792 transporting sand for Phuong Nam Construction Materials Store in Loc Thanh commune, vehicle 49H 00588 transporting sand for Kim Thinh Construction Materials Store in Loc Nam commune, and vehicle 49C 26080 transporting sand for Vu Dieu Construction Materials Store in Loc Phu commune.
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| Tractors are also an active "army" participating in transporting sand. |
In addition, there is also vehicle 49C 27109 transporting sand to a sand storage yard at the beginning of Phan Chu Trinh Street, vehicle 49H 02142 transporting to Hung Phat Construction Materials Store on Mac Dinh Chi Street (Ward 2, Bao Loc City) and many vehicles with other license plates...
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During a working trip on March 17, Vice Chairman of Lam Dong Provincial People's Committee Vo Ngoc Hiep inspected this illegal sand mining area. At the time of the inspection, the area had been recorded as a violation by the authorities of Bao Lam district and Loc Tan commune; at the same time, further verification and investigation were carried out to handle the matter according to regulations.
The Vice Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee has directed the provincial departments and branches to promptly coordinate with Bao Loc City and Bao Lam District to continue inspecting and thoroughly handling violations here.
A month later, on April 18, Lam Dong Newspaper reporters returned to the area and found the sandbank inactive. However, when they returned again in July 2023, they found the sandbank to be bustling with activity.
| On August 7, the weather started to get sunny after more than 10 days of continuous rain, so more excavators were brought to the yard to increase operations. The frequency of transportation of the vehicles was also higher than other days. Notably, between 6:30 p.m. and 8:30 p.m., I recorded 4 tractor trips and 6 dump trucks entering the yard to transport sand. |
So, who is the owner of this illegal sand mine, how has the operation here made illegal profits, and why have the authorities not inspected and thoroughly handled this illegal sand mining activity as directed by the Vice Chairman of Lam Dong Provincial People's Committee?
According to the investigation, this illegal sand mining area used to belong to a company operating in the field of mineral exploitation. Later, this company’s license expired and it stopped mining. However, illegal sand mining activities here still occur regularly.
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| Vehicles transporting sand out of the yard were recorded for many consecutive days at many times of the day. Photo cut from clip |
According to a resident who has a coffee garden next to the sand pit, the sand pit is currently being operated by two men named KT and NT. Another source said that the owner of this sand pit is the QHH enterprise.
Trucks that come to the sand yard usually pay in cash or the owners of the construction materials stores will transfer payment to the sand pit owner in advance, then the truck will come to scoop the sand. Dump trucks with large loads usually carry an average of 15 cubic meters of sand per trip, smaller trucks carry 8-10 cubic meters, and tractors carry 2-3 cubic meters.
[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xl9W5nYmcjY[/embed]
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