In recent years, Brazil has seen changes in the export routes used for gold extracted illegally from its territory. Until 2022, the metal was shipped clandestinely from ports in the states of Pará and São Paulo directly to markets such as the United States and Europe. As enforcement intensified, criminal networks increasingly began using neighboring South American countries as transit hubs to launder the gold by concealing its illegal origin before re-exporting it to other continents.
That is the account given to Folha by five investigators directly involved in operations against illegal mining. Today, illegal miners transport the metal from Indigenous lands in the Amazon by road, aircraft and clandestine routes.
"There has been an increase in the illegal and clandestine movement of gold. Very often we see aircraft and airstrips being used to take this gold to Venezuela, Guyana or Suriname—and sometimes to Colombia by river," said federal prosecutor André Luiz Porreca Ferreira Cunha.
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