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Brazil’s Environment Minister Ricardo Salles
Photo: Adriano Machado / REUTERS
Some Brazilians also call Ricardo Salles "Minister of Environmental Destruction" because he is idly watching the destruction of the Amazon rainforest (read more here).
Now President Jair Bolsonaro's environment minister is suspected of being involved in illegal timber trade.
The police are investigating an "extremely serious scheme to facilitate the smuggling of rainforest products, allegedly with the participation (...) of Environment Minister Ricardo Salles," said Chief Justice Alexandre de Moraes in a statement on Wednesday. Following a ruling by the Supreme Court, police officers searched the offices of the Ministry of the Environment in Brasília, São Paulo and Pará state and, according to media reports, the minister's house. Around 160 police officers were therefore deployed to implement 35 search and seizure warrants.
The court also removed ten senior environmental officials from their posts, but not Salles himself. The judges gave investigators access to Salles bank accounts to look for evidence of improper income.
Among the deposed officers is the President of the Ibama Environmental Protection Agency, Eduardo Bim.
Activists and experts accuse Salles of systematically undermining environmental protection programs.
Since the right-wing extremist President Jair Bolsonaro took office, the destruction of the Amazon rainforest has accelerated sharply.
In April last year, the minister said at a cabinet meeting that the government should use the distraction caused by the corona pandemic to weaken environmental regulations.
The environmental protection organization Greenpeace Brazil welcomed the decision and called for Salles himself to be removed "immediately".
The investigation began in January, according to the federal police, after information was received from foreign authorities about wrongdoing by Brazilian officials in the export process.
Corruption and the facilitation of smuggling are among the possible crimes.
as / Reuters / dpa / AFP