RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – On Thursday night, August 29th, at the Ouro Verde farm in São Félix do Xingu, in the south of Pará, the Civil Police seized dozens of gallons of gasoline that were used to set fire to the woods.
The property is located within the Triunfo do Xingu Environmental Protection Area. The seizure occurred during a police operation that carried out search and seizure warrants on the farm.
According to the investigations, over 5,000 hectares of native forest were destroyed by the fire. The inquiry was initiated to investigate criminal fires in the area and suggests Geraldo Daniel de Oliveira, the property’s owner, as the suspect of having hired more than fifty men to cut down 20,000 hectares in the area in the Triunfo do Xingu Environmental Protection Area.
The court has issued a warrant for Oliveira’s arrest, but he is still at large. He has previously charged in four lawsuits involving environmental crimes, according to the Pará court. José Brasil — his brother and also the owner of the farm — was located and arrested in Goiânia.
A denunciation by the State Prosecutor’s Office (MPPA) says that Geraldo hired individuals to start fires in a conservation area in Pará and bikers to threaten environmental agents.
Farmworkers were heard by the Civil Police and confirmed that the fuel used was intended to set off a criminal fire in the forest. According to the police, the workers reported that the containers were gradually taken to the inner part of the forest to ignite the fire.
Canisters of different sizes were found in the area, most of them with a storage capacity of up to 200 liters of fuel.
Teams from the Renato Chaves Center for Scientific Expertise will be deployed to the farm to carry out the necessary expertise work. All collected material will be forwarded to the Prosecutor’s Office of São Félix do Xingu.