Brazil’s environmental regulator says that meatpacking giant JBS “for years knowingly bought cattle that were raised on illegally deforested land,” says Reuters. JBS denied the allegation, which comes at the same time the Brazilian meat industry is reeling from a meat-inspection scandal. “JBS is the only major Brazilian meatpacker involved in both the inspection scandal and the rainforest protection probe,” said Reuters.
The environmental agency, IBAMA, fined JBS 24 million reals, equal to $7.7 million, and ordered the suspension of two JBS packing plants, as well as 13 other plants, said the news agency. IBAMA says JBS bought 49,438 head of cattle illegally from 2013-16, half of them directly from embargoed pastures and the rest through transactions designed to obscure the source of the livestock.