This report reveals how loopholes in Brazil’s mining permit system allow illegally mined gold to enter global markets, fueling environmental destruction and deepening the crisis faced by Indigenous Peoples in the Amazon.

OTTAWA – At a time when global markets are increasingly shaped by instability and geopolitical tension, gold has re-emerged as a symbol of a secure investment. However, new evidence suggests that this sense of security may be deeply misleading. A new Greenpeace Brazil report published today, Gold Laundering in the Amazon: Anatomy of a Fraud, reveals how loopholes in Brazil’s mining system allow illegally mined gold, including gold extracted from Indigenous Territories and Conservation Units, to enter formal markets disguised as legal production.

Through major trading, refining and consumer hubs, this gold ends up at destinations such as Canada, where it follows a path of becoming embedded in global supply chains. Once this gold is absorbed by the market, it becomes extremely difficult to trace. In 2024, 61.567 tonnes of gold worth more than US$3.9 billion were exported from Brazil to markets across the world. Of the nearly 61.567 tonnes exported from Brazil, 29.4 tonnes worth nearly US$1.83 billion were exported to Canada, making Canada the top export destination of Brazilian gold. 

This new investigative report follows Toxic Gold, a 2025 investigative report by Greenpeace Brazil and Greenpeace Germany, which exposed how illegal gold from the Amazon moves through opaque international supply chains before reaching major refining and trading hubs linked to Canada and Europe.

The new report identifies one of the key mechanisms that enables this laundering process. At the center of the scheme is the Garimpo Permit (Permissão de Lavra Garimpeira – PLG). The PLG, which was created more than three decades ago to regulate artisanal mining, have become one of the main tools for laundering illegally mined gold in the Amazon. Due to the fact that prior mineral surveys are not required and permit holders themselves declare the productive potential of mining areas, there are no reliable technical parameters to assess the actual productive potential of areas granted under PLGs.

Danicley Aguiar, Indigenous Peoples Campaign Coordinator at Greenpeace Brazil, said: 

“We are talking about a gold laundering scheme that, for decades, has used a legal instrument to insert gold stolen from Indigenous Territories and Conservation Units in the Amazon into national and international markets. Those who buy gold from the Amazon can and must push for the adoption of measures capable of preventing gold laundering, reaffirming a global commitment to human rights and environmental protection.”

The report analyzed 187 mining tenements between 2018 and March 2026 and identified 98 Garimpo Permits (PLGs) with irregularities. Together, these permits accounted for the declared sales of 25.3 tonnes of gold during the analyzed period, which, at current market values, would be worth around US$3.5 billion.

Within 98 PLGs with irregularities that were identified by Greenpeace Brazil, 94% of those PLGs were classified either as “Ghost Garimpo Mines” or “Industrial-Scale Garimpo Operations.”

  • Ghost Garimpo Mines: PLGs where there is little or no evidence of mining activity compatible with the declared production volumes. According to the report, these permits may function as a paper trail used to introduce gold mined from unauthorized locations into formal supply chains.
  • Industrial-Scale Garimpo Operations: Arrangements in which multiple small-scale permits are exploited as a single integrated mining operation, allowing operators to evade stricter requirements and controls normally applied to industrial mining projects. 

The environmental and social consequences of these loopholes and weak traceability systems are severe. Between 1985 and 2022, the area impacted by mining in Brazil increased by 1,100%, with 91% of this expansion concentrated in the Amazon. By September 2025, illegal gold mining had already consumed almost 100,000 hectares of forest within protected areas of the Amazon.

By allowing illegally mined gold to enter formal markets disguised as legal production, the current model fuels deforestation, river contamination by mercury and the expansion of mining into protected areas and Indigenous Territories across the Amazon. 

Alessandra Korap Munduruku, a Munduruku Indigenous leader, said:

“We want to live in a standing and living Amazon, with our rights protected, with clean rivers, with fish free from contamination, and without the constant threat of invasions.”

ENDS

Note to editors:

The new 2026 report, Gold Laundering in the Amazon: Anatomy of a Fraud by Greenpeace Brazil, is available here.

Photos are available in the Greenpeace Media Library.

For more information, please contact:

Sarah Micho, Communications Campaigner, Greenpeace Canada [email protected], +1 647 428 0603