Organized Crime Responsible for Amazon Deforestation, Says Brazil’s Prosecutor General

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Brazil’s prosecutor general, Raquel Dodge, said on Monday, September 2nd, that organized crime is to blame for the deforestation of the Amazon Rainforest.

According to her, information gathered by the Federal Prosecutor’s Office shows “signs of an association between the groups that cut down the forest and the buyers of timber abroad, to which most of the illegally harvested product in Brazil is sent”.

According to Raquel Dodge, ‘in order to reverse the problem, it is necessary to enhance the role of the Prosecutor’s Office within the criminal prosecution system and invest in international cooperation mechanisms that take into account the peculiarities of each type of crime, with actions at both domestic and international levels’.

Dodge’s statements were made at the opening ceremony of a working meeting between federal prosecutors and EUROJUST (the European Union’s Legal Cooperation Unit) representatives.

The event takes place on Monday and Tuesday, September 2nd and 3rd, at the Federal Prosecutor’s Office headquarters, in Brasília.

While assessing the deforestation issue in Brazil, Raquel emphasized that “it is necessary to face the issue as a transnational phenomenon”.

“The information we have is of a close association between those deforesting and those buying timber,” said the prosecutor-general.

“Between those who deforest and set fire to the forest, and those who use this timber abroad. [The timber] is not only used in Brazilian territory. In fact, it is rarely used in this country. The port of shipment is in the north of Brazil, it is not destined for Brazil”.

According to her, deforestation is very costly.

“Because getting into the forest, clearing it in the first phase using slave labor, loading those logs, routing them by river to the port, shipping them abroad is the work of an organization and engineering that is not the result of an unplanned occasional action,” said the head of the Federal Prosecutor’s Office.

Raquel further stressed the need to implement cooperation actions between the Brazilian Prosecutor’s Office and foreign officials.

She advocated the fight against corruption and money laundering “with tools that prevent the concealed transfer abroad of Brazilian public property assets”.

“Because other countries have been havens for the deflection of Brazilian public property funds. If there is no cooperation to prevent European countries from being the destination of this money diverted from our public property, this corruption will continue unabated”, said the prosecutor-general.

She further addressed the high rates of violence in the country. In her opinion, organized crime is largely responsible for the 65,000 homicides that take place every year in Brazil.

Many of these deaths are related to international and domestic drug trafficking. “Brazil is not a producer of most of the drugs associated with international trafficking,” she noted.