Brazilian Federal Police Raid Country's Largest Carbon Credit Company; Fraud, Illegal Deforestation, More

On June 5, the Brazilian Federal Police launched a raid targeting the proponents of some of the largest carbon credit projects in the Brazilian Amazon. The Greenwashing Operation focuses on the group of Ricardo Stoppe, cited in late May in a Mongabay investigation for its links with an alleged illegal timber scam. In the country’s largest investigation ever done on this matter, authorities found that the group had installed projects in land-grabbed areas, making 180 million reais ($34 million) from the selling of “rotten” carbon credits.

Stoppe owns five REDD+ projects in the Brazilian Amazon, covering 400,000 hectares (nearly 1 million acres), more than five times the size of New York City. REDD+ stands for reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, and carbon credits are generated by protecting an area that could otherwise be deforested.

The Federal Police targeted the same three projects investigated by Mongabay: Fortaleza Ituxi, Unitor and Evergreen, located in the municipalities of Lábrea and Apuí, in the south of Amazonas state. Among the buyers of these credits are companies such as the carbon credit broker Moss, the Brazilian low-cost carrier GOL Airlines, the food delivery app iFood, Itaú, one of the country’s leading banks, and the international companies Toshiba, Spotify and Boeing.

The Federal Police echoed Mongabay’s findings that the group was using these areas not only to generate carbon credits but also to issue fake documents to launder timber taken from illegally deforested areas.

EDIT

https://news.mongabay.com/2024/06/brazilian-investigators-raid-amazon-carbon-credit-projects-exposed-by-mongabay/