Aircraft and fuel help drive illegal Amazon mining

An Associated Press investigation shows that unauthorized aircraft – and the countless liters of fuel needed to power them and other mining equipment – form the backbone of the shadowy economy of illicit gold mining on Indigenous lands in Brazil's Amazon region.

Federal and state officials and environmental experts say without that network functioning smoothly, illegal mining operations would collapse.

"The value of an ounce of gold has gone up from $400 in 2000 to over $1800 an ounce today. And so there are hundreds of illegal gold mines that have emerged in the last couple of years," said Robert Muggah from the Igarapé Institute.

Here in Roraima state, where all gold mining is illegal, the planes are essential for transporting prospectors and equipment to far-flung Indigenous reserves, including Brazil's largest, Yanomami.

Environmental and Indigenous rights groups estimate some 20,000 illegal miners are present on the reserve that is roughly the same size as Portugal. Government officials, including Brazil's Vice President Hamilton Mourão, put the number closer to 3,500.

Police have intensified their efforts to identify and capture aircraft supporting illegal mining, but tracking down planes' owners is stymied by the fact they're usually registered to fronts – relatives, workers, or spouses who refuse to name names.

Generally, the illegal aircraft owners are local elites who launder their money in Boa Vista hotels, restaurants, gyms, and gasoline stations, according to police officials, who declined to disclose names.

Brazil's environmental regulator, Ibama, has also ramped up its efforts against illegal gold mining operations.

Last September, the agency closed 59 clandestine airstrips, five helicopter pads, and three river ports within the Yanomami reserve.

Agents also seized 11 aircraft, eight vehicles, and three tractors.

More than 300 mostly short videos filmed by agents — part of a report obtained by the AP — show planes hidden with brush and tarps, plus stockpiles of fuel under the forest canopy - sometimes after agents have set them ablaze.

"This is a symbolic gesture to a show of force to demonstrate that, in fact, some effort is taking place," Muggah said.

According to data provided exclusively to the AP by MapBiomas, a network of nonprofits, universities, and technology companies that study Brazilian land use, there are at least 40 landing strips within the Yanomami reserve, most of them illegal.

But attempts to disrupt the illicit operations have been met with just as many countermeasures to subvert the authorities.