A new investigation links Brazil’s continued mining permits in the Tapajós to mercury pollution and “gold laundering,” warning Indigenous communities face long-term health risks.
One of the most urgent science stories in the Brazilian Amazon is unfolding in plain sight: in rivers where communities have lived for generations, mercury from gold mining is building up in people’s bodies, while the government continues to issue mining permits widely described as irregular.
In the Tapajós River basin. scientists from the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz) have found mercury levels above safe limits in an Indigenous community network that includes families along the river.. For Aleckson. an 11-year-old boy from the Munduruku people living with cerebral palsy. the contamination is part of a broader pattern affecting his mother and neighbors as well.. Fiocruz researchers traced the contamination to gold mining practices that use mercury to separate gold. releasing the metal into waterways where it moves into the food chain.
The investigation described in this report argues that the harm does not stem only from outright illegal mining.. It also points to decisions and omissions by Brazil’s National Mining Agency (ANM). which continues to maintain Garimpeiro Mining Permits (PLGs) despite recurring signs that some permits may be used to legitimize gold produced elsewhere.. Oversight bodies have previously flagged “gold laundering” schemes connected to PLGs—an approach that can turn illicit gold into “declared” legal production.
Garimpeiro Mining Permits were created in 1989 to regulate small-scale mining during a gold rush in the Tapajós region. when the expectation was low-impact extraction.. But decades later. the report says the reality has shifted: what started as artisanal work has expanded into operations with heavy equipment. dredges. and the use of mercury.. In this setting. the permits can function as a legal veneer that allows large-scale illegal extraction to be processed under simplified rules.
For more than ten years, oversight agencies have warned about irregularities tied to PLGs.. In 2022, the Comptroller General of the Union identified illegalities in an audit.. The following year. Operation Sisaque—run by Brazil’s Federal Police. Federal Revenue Service. and the Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office—uncovered one of the Amazon’s largest gold-laundering operations that depended on PLGs in Tapajós.. In 2025. the Federal Court of Accounts reached similar conclusions. describing structural weaknesses that enable gold from illegal sources to be legalized.
Even with that history. the report finds that between 2022 and 2026. of 540 PLGs that declared gold sales in the Tapajós River basin. nearly half—263 permits—showed no evidence of extraction consistent with the volumes reported.. The pattern suggests that some PLGs may help “launder” gold extracted illegally in other places and then bring it into the formal market as though it were legitimately mined.
Spatial analysis in the report also links the licensing structure to mining fronts on the ground.. Roughly 70% of mining activity in the region occurs within 10 kilometers of PLGs that declare gold production.. That proximity. the authors argue. supports the idea that illegal operations—including some occurring inside conservation areas and Indigenous territories—may be using these permits to channel gold into regulated channels.
The economic footprint is not small. The report states that about 60% of gold passing through legalized mining in Brazil has moved via a Tapajós PLG during the past four years, corresponding to $2.03 billion (10 billion Brazilian reais) in declared production in the basin.
To reach these conclusions. the investigation relies on the VEIO (Verification and Investigation of Gold Origin) platform. which cross-references mining and deforestation signals with mineral production taxes and gold export figures.. The tool was developed by InfoAmazonia together with Instituto Dados, with support from the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime.
In the Tapajós, the licensing controversy is tightly bound to a health crisis.. The report describes research conducted with pregnant women and newborns among the Munduruku people. where long-term exposure is suspected to drive neurological risk.. Researchers are investigating links to Minamata disease—a severe neurological syndrome recognized after acute methylmercury poisoning from industrial waste in Japan in the 1950s.. While the Tapajós contamination is described as chronic and gradual rather than a single disaster. scientists say mercury can still accumulate over time and lead to lasting damage.
According to researchers cited in the report, the principal modern pathway in the Amazon is fish consumption.. Mercury from mining enters the river, becomes methylmercury, and accumulates up the food chain.. Because the metal can persist in the environment for decades—even after mining stops—the effects can continue long after operations end.. In the Tapajós basin. the report highlights carnivorous fish such as barbado. surubim. and tucunaré as commonly consumed species associated with higher mercury concentrations.
The report describes that since studies began in some villages around 2019. nearly half of examined children have shown heavy metal levels above safe limits.. Among pregnant women. the report says concentrations can reach up to five times the recommended threshold. meaning exposure can pass to fetuses.. While researchers emphasize that definitive causal links between mercury exposure and specific clinical conditions still require additional evidence. they also say observed warning signs align with what medical literature associates with mercury-related illness.
For the communities, the dietary reality is difficult to change.. As families rely heavily on fish. reducing exposure often means trying to alter the central food source of an entire region.. That challenge is reflected in the narrative around Aleckson’s family and in interviews with Indigenous residents describing mercury in everyday life. not as an abstract threat but as a growing part of routines.
Beyond community-level harm. the report centers on specific mining arrangements that it describes as enabling legal status to be conferred on dubious production.. It details the Minuano Cooperative of Miners and Prospectors. a cooperative that previously participated in an investigation tied to gold laundering.. In the Tapajós Environmental Protection Area (APA). the report says Minuano declared production in permits where there are no matching extraction signals such as deforestation consistent with mining activity.
The cooperative’s operating footprint is described as complex: the report says satellite images show mining functioning as an integrated whole even when divided into parcels.. It attributes this to a regulatory design where permits can be split into parcels up to a certain maximum area. allowing operations to fall under less demanding environmental rules.. The report adds that the mining has already altered the river’s course.
Minuano’s record in the report includes permits inside the Tapajós APA that the management body responsible for federal protected areas says have not received required authorization.. The report states ICMBio has reported receiving authorization requests from Minuano, but that the application remains under review.
The investigation also describes individual involvement in permit concentrations. focusing on a lawyer. José Antunes. who chairs the Environmental Law Commission of the Brazilian Bar Association in Itaituba.. According to the report. he holds a large number of PLGs within the Tapajós APA. spanning more than 8. 000 hectares. and has declared production across multiple permits.. In some cases. the report says there is no evidence of mining activity; in others. extraction appears to extend beyond licensed boundaries.
It also says inspectors from Ibama documented active, unauthorized mining in December 2024 in areas covered by Antunes’s PLGs. Those alleged violations include illegal mercury use, river alteration, and deforestation in permanent preservation areas.
Federal and environmental regulators have not been operating in a vacuum.. The report describes a public civil action filed by the Federal Prosecutor’s Office to seek suspension of mining permits inside the Tapajós APA.. The lawsuit argues that permits were issued without prior ICMBio analysis. a requirement the report ties to Article 17 of Law 7.805/1989 for activities in conservation units.. The MPF also argues the risk is unacceptable for rivers and public health, especially for Indigenous and vulnerable communities.
ICMBio’s position in the report is that mining in the Tapajós APA requires prior authorization and has not been granted in most cases.. ANM counters that permits with environmental licenses are valid and that it does not question other authorities’ documents.. The agency also says it is working to identify and regularize permits that lack ICMBio approval. while maintaining that it does not authorize mercury use within PLGs and that it detects inconsistencies using inspections. cross-checking. and satellite monitoring.
The scale of the environmental damage described in the report is one reason the dispute has intensified.. It cites MapBiomas data compiled by Greenpeace at the request of the investigation. stating that the Tapajós APA has become the federally protected area most heavily degraded by mining. with 83. 000 hectares already affected—an area likened in the report to the scale of major U.S.. cities.
The report further states that ICMBio says at least 829 PLGs were authorized by ANM within the Tapajós APA without review by the management body.. ANM’s legal interpretation. according to the report. is that environmental authorization is required when exploration begins rather than when permits are issued.. The MPF argues this interpretation effectively removes environmental oversight and turns mining permits into tools that provide legality to gold that should not be legally produced.
In addition to the lawsuit, the Federal Court of Accounts is described as reaching conclusions about systemic weaknesses.. The audit completed in July 2025 cites regulatory permissiveness and failures in oversight of the gold supply chain. including omissions that allow laundering and the artificial fragmentation of areas.. The report says the court ordered ANM to cancel irregular authorizations within 90 days; that deadline is described as having already passed.
In the field, Ibama actions described in the report underscore how enforcement and authorization collide.. Between December 2024 and January 2025. Ibama ordered the suspension of 342 PLGs in the Tapajós APA after an operation against illegal mining. citing issues including lack of ICMBio authorization. destruction of vegetation. mining in permanent preservation areas. and extensive mercury use.
The report quotes Ibama’s environmental protection director, Jair Schmitt, arguing the problem is not isolated violations.. He says it is impossible to reconcile the current mining scale with any legal scenario given how mercury is regulated in Brazil after the Minamata Convention took effect in 2017.. The report says Brazil stopped importing mercury and sharply restricted its use. making the claim of legal compliance difficult in practice.
Meanwhile, community testimony in the report focuses on what regulation looks like to people living downstream.. Indigenous leaders and residents describe water no longer behaving like clean river water. and they connect the decline to mercury exposure they say has become part of daily life.. The report includes accounts of skin irritation when bathing and changes in riverbank life that once involved children playing there.
A federal court ruling referenced in the report adds another layer: it ordered the federal government to provide drinking water to Indigenous communities and acknowledged structural abandonment worsened by mining-related contamination.. That decision frames contamination as a systemic public responsibility, not simply an issue of individual wrongdoing.
The investigation also highlights concerns about consultation processes and human rights obligations.. In September 2025, the Public Prosecutor’s Office in Santarém recommended annulling 15 PLGs in areas adjoining multiple Indigenous territories.. It argues these permits were granted without prior consultation required under ILO Convention 169.. The MPF also points to violations of measures ordered by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights intended to contain mercury contamination.
For Indigenous residents, the report suggests the dividing line between “legal” and “illegal” mining can become meaningless if the contamination persists. That theme runs through the narrative: mining continues to pollute the river, and the river remains central to life, food, and health.
At a technical level. the report closes by describing how VEIO works—using administrative datasets including SIGMINE and CFEM from ANM for mining processes and mineral production declarations. combined with deforestation alerts. satellite imagery. and gold export figures.. The system flags potential irregularities by updating weekly and indicating whether illegal activity affects Indigenous lands. quilombola territories. conservation units. or rural settlements.
The investigation also includes responses from stakeholders.. ANM says administrative investigations are ongoing into possible irregularities in the gold production chain. including cases of laundering. and states it discusses prior consultation but maintains there is no automatic ban on mining within 10 kilometers of Indigenous lands.. The report notes that other parties contacted either declined to comment or contested findings. including arguments about satellite limitations in the Tapajós biome and claims of good-faith operation.
Taken together. the report paints a picture in which environmental degradation and mercury poisoning are sustained by a licensing system that—despite years of warnings—keeps elements of dubious production inside regulated channels.. For communities living along the Tapajós. the scientific evidence of mercury’s pathway into food and bodies is already present. while the legal question of how permits are used remains unresolved.
For Misryoum, this investigation underscores the tension between formal authorization and on-the-ground reality, and it raises the stakes of enforcement, monitoring, and public health protections in one of Brazil’s most important mining regions.
Amazon gold mining mercury poisoning Tapajós River gold laundering permits Fiocruz research Indigenous health ANM oversight