Operations destroyed 323 mining camps in Yanomami territory

The Ministry of Justice informed, this Thursday (22), that 323 mining camps have been destroyed in the Yanomami Indigenous Land since January, when operations to repress prospectors who operated illegally in the region began. The ministry also coordinated the destruction of 151 ferries and confiscated more than R$ 2 billion in assets from those investigated.

The announcement of the results took place on the same day that the ministry published an ordinance changing the attributions of the military in the region, which now began to carry out preventive and repressive actions in the region, and no longer just providing intelligence data and logistical air transport.

“An operation with that blocked amount demonstrates the strength of this criminal activity that we are, at this moment, fighting”, said Minister Flávio Dino during the presentation.

Still according to him, the operations were responsible for combating environmental crimes and money laundering. At the same time, the government sent Congress a bill that regulates the trade and transport of gold in the country, suspending once and for all the previous norm of the presumption of good faith by traders.

The project requires, among other points, proof of the legal origin of the metal, with the issuance of an electronic invoice for the other in parallel with other procedures already adopted by the Federal Revenue Service.

The expectation is that the project will be voted on in August, after the end of the parliamentary recess.