Brazil’s federal police have seized assets related to illegal mining operations in the Amazon rainforest, as the government of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva cracks down on unsanctioned commercial activity that threatens the forest and the people who inhabit it.
In a press release on Wednesday, the federal police said they had seized more than 2 billion reais ($383m) garnered from the sale of about 13 tonnes of gold, which had been illegally extracted from the rainforest and exported through an unnamed US-based entity.
The police also said they were carrying out 27 search and seizure warrants and three arrest warrants to disrupt the gold-smuggling operation.
“More than 100 federal police officers are participating in Operation Sisaque, in addition to five tax auditors and three Federal Revenue analysts,” the release said. “The objectives are to expand the volume of evidence to dismantle the criminal scheme and combat clandestine mining, especially in the Itaituba region.”
The police are investigating crimes including mining without authorisation, money laundering and usurping property without legal authorisation.
The police operation comes as the Lula administration seeks to step up protections for the Amazon after years of degradation by illegal business activity, including logging, mining and farming. Former far-right President Jair Bolsonaro largely turned a blind eye to such activity, which led to record deforestation and violence against the Indigenous communities that call the forest home.
Some of the business interests expanding into the Amazon, particularly in the agricultural sector, were important constituencies for Bolsonaro, who viewed development in the forest as a tool to boost the economy.
In its statement, the federal police said criminal organisations operating in the Amazon had used a United States-based company to make their business dealings seem legitimate. The company oversaw sales of illegally extracted gold to Italy, Switzerland, Hong Kong and the United Arab Emirates, among other countries.
Generally, gold taken from the Amazon must be presented to financial brokers regulated by Brazil’s central bank. Miners are required to document where the gold was discovered before it can be sold, but brokers are often unable to verify the information.
The effect of clandestine gold mining on the Amazon was brought into sharp focus when the Lula administration declared a public health emergency in January for the Yanomami Indigenous people, who suffered health defects, malnutrition and violence due to the intrusion of illegal mining activity on their lands.The effect of clandestine gold mining on the Amazon was brought into sharp focus when the Lula administration declared a public health emergency in January for the Yanomami Indigenous people, who suffered health defects, malnutrition and violence due to the intrusion of illegal mining activity on their lands.
Brazil launched raids earlier this month to remove the illegal miners from the country’s largest Indigenous reservation.
“The malnutrition crisis continues to be extremely serious. We believe the reopening of medical units can only be done when the miners are all removed,” Indigenous health secretary Ricardo Weibe Tapeba said during a news conference earlier this month.
Brazilian authorities have intensified their fight against illegal mining in areas inhabited by the Indigenous Yanomami people, sending helicopters over the Amazon jungle in search of clandestine dig sites.
From above, heavily armed police and officials from the Ibama environmental agency spot a camp: a brown patch of deforested land in the middle of the vast green carpet that is the Amazon.
There are improvised sleeping quarters, a kitchen, and bathrooms. The sound of engines thrumming indicates the miners are not far away.
Government agents have already blocked illegal movement on the area’s two main rivers, said Felipe Finger, an Ibama coordinator. “Now we are starting another phase – to attack these mining operations, break up and neutralise these camps.”
Spotting the helicopters, the “garimpeiros” or illegal miners, flee into the jungle, leaving behind sacks of cassiterite – tin dioxide-rich ore known as “black gold” – which they sell to commercial buyers.
While camouflage-wearing soldiers torch the camp, agents question a 36-year-old miner who failed to escape.
“Illegal mining is not going to end – it has nothing to do with Lula or Bolsonaro,” he says, referring to the current left-wing president and his right-wing predecessor.
The miner, who gave his name as Eduardo, said he could make 5,000 reis ($1,000) a week working in the camp, adding, “where can you earn that in the city?”
Yanomami leaders say some 20,000 clandestine miners have invaded their territory, killing Indigenous people, sexually abusing women and adolescents and contaminating rivers with the mercury they use to separate gold from sediment.
In January, the federal police opened an investigation of possible genocide linked to the miners’ abuse of the Yanomami and their resources.
The move came after an official report found that about 100 young children had died in the area last year, some from malnutrition.
“We suffer from diarrhoea and vomiting. We have no healthcare. People go hungry and we have nothing to eat,” said one Yanomami.
Brazil’s air force has installed a field hospital in Boa Vista, the capital of northern Roraima state, and the military said it has evacuated some 130 patients by helicopter from remote locations.
Illegal mining rose sharply during the 2019-22 presidency of Jair Bolsonaro, who favoured opening Indigenous lands to such activity.