The investigation has just taken a big step in Guyana on the death of a GIGN gendarme during an operation against illegal gold panning on March 25. A man suspected of being the author of the shooting was arrested on Saturday. According to the first elements of the investigation, the suspect belonged to a group of robbers of clandestine gold mines and was not himself a gold panner.
Aged 20 and of Brazilian nationality, he was arrested in the afternoon by the GIGN in the Guyanese forest, after having announced his intention to surrender, said the public prosecutor of Cayenne, Yves Le Clear. He was placed in judicial detention, before his appearance before the judge of freedoms and detention, who should place him under a warrant of committal.
A 35-year-old policeman father of two children
The GIGN policeman, Arnaud Blanc, 35, died while taking part in an operation on the clandestine site of Dorlin, not far from Maripasoula. He had been helicoptered with nine comrades to the heart of the Guyanese jungle in order to reach the site by surprise. The group had been taken to task by an armed band. After exchanges of heavy fire, the gendarme, gendarmerie non-commissioned officer of the GIGN Cayenne branch since 2019, had been shot.
The suspect had remained “in the area,” said Yves Le Clair. His arrest also comes eight days after the tribute paid on March 31 by Emmanuel Macron to gendarme Arnaud Blanc, PACS and father of two children, on the basis of the GIGN of Versailles-Satory in the Yvelines.
Operations complicated by borders
The army and the gendarmerie regularly carry out major operations to dismantle illegal gold panning sites as part of the Harpie mission, launched in 2008 by Nicolas Sarkozy, then head of state. According to figures from a parliamentary report published in July 2021, the Guyana gendarmerie estimates the number of illegal minors at around 8,600, mainly “in an irregular situation on the territory”.
Some 500 illegal gold panning sites are still active, according to the Mining Activity Observatory (OAM), including 150 located in the heart of the Amazon National Park, created in 2007 to protect the Amazon rainforest and its biodiversity. In addition to the difficulties encountered in penetrating the Amazonian forest, the fight against this phenomenon is complicated by its cross-border nature, the gold miners operating on either side of the Oyapock and Maroni rivers, borders between the French department and, respectively, Brazil and Suriname.