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TITLE: Brazilian Selling Amazon Tracts to Foreigners |
AUTHOR: Phil Stewart |
PUB: Reuters |
DATE: January 8, 2001 |
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An alleged Brazilian con artist is selling huge tracts of government land in the world's largest rain forest to U.S. and European environmentalists, telling them the territory will be set aside for conservation, the government said on Monday. Falb Saraiva de Farias, head of a nongovernmental organization (NGO) called "Forever Green,'' has allegedly peddled falsified land titles for an Amazon territory nearly the size of Ireland, according to a federal investigation. Brazil's Agrarian Reform Ministry said the government was suing Farias for fraud, adding he might have links to a major money-laundering racket and organized crime. The government said it was unable to estimate how much money Farias could have made from the alleged scheme. "He fooled European and U.S. citizens, selling them land that belongs to Brazil,'' Agrarian Reform Minister Raul Jungmann told Reuters. "This is a crime that extends abroad. We have asked ABIN (the Brazilian Intelligence Service) for help in this investigation.'' Jungmann said the government had canceled all of Farias' land titles, which totaled more than 15 million acres (6 million hectares). But the man the government dubs one of Brazil's biggest land thieves is still living in the Amazon state of Amazonas -- without any pending arrest warrant. "The courts have been a little slow on this. But his hours are numbered.'' Jungmann said. "I believe we have enough proof to convict him.'' Attempts to reach Farias were unsuccessful. Environmental groups, including the Nature Conservancy, legitimately buy tracts of endangered land in Brazil for ecological protection. But more often than not, remote plots in Brazil are occupied by so-called "grelheiros,'' people who doctor land titles usually with the help of the local government. The government alleges that Farias accumulated the land titles through such local connections, and added that some 15 licensing offices were under review. Due to Brazil's vast size -- the country has a land mass larger than the continental United States -- many remote jungle areas go almost completely unregulated -- allowing some people to accumulate vast amounts of land titles illegally and without federal knowledge. President Fernando Henrique Cardoso has attempted during his six years in office to crack down on grelheiros operating in the Amazon jungle. Last year alone, the government canceled enough land titles to blot out a territory the size of France. In the same investigation that involved Farias, government officials also canceled fake land titles that gave a local construction magnate a Denmark-sized swath of Amazon territory -- much of which overlapped protected Indian reservations. "It's a mess. You still have people walking around with land titles from the Portuguese empire, when Brazil was still a colony. Law is secondary here,'' said Paulo Adario, head of Greenpeace's Amazon conservation program. Brazil won its independence from Portugal in 1822. END |