Brasilia: In July 2023, Harley Sandoval, an evangelical pastor, real estate agent, and mining entrepreneur, was arrested for the illegal exportation of 294 kilograms of gold from Brazil’s Amazon to the United States, Dubai, and Italy. On the surface, the gold appeared to have been sourced from a legal mining operation in the northern state of Tocantins, where Sandoval held a license. However, authorities soon revealed that no gold had been mined from that location since colonial times.
Using cutting-edge forensic technology and satellite imagery, Brazil’s Federal Police were able to prove that the gold had not come from Tocantins but from three illicit wildcat mines in neighboring Pará, some located on protected Indigenous reservation lands, according to previously unreleased court documents dated November 2023, reviewed by Reuters.
This case is one of the first in Brazil to utilize new forensic methods in efforts to combat clandestine gold trading, which may account for up to 50% of Brazil’s gold production. As a major global gold producer and exporter, Brazil has seen an alarming surge in illegal mining, resulting in significant environmental degradation and criminal violence in the Amazon. Seizures of illicit gold have increased seven-fold over the past seven years, according to exclusive Federal Police data obtained by Reuters.
Sandoval, currently out on bail pending trial, continues to preach at his Pentecostal Evangelical church in Goiania, Brazil, alongside his wife. He denies the charges, asserting that once gold is melted into ingots for export, it is impossible to trace its origin. “That’s impossible. To export gold one always has to melt it down,” he stated in a phone interview with Reuters.
The DNA of Gold
Traditionally, gold is difficult to trace, particularly once it has been melted and combined with metal from different sources. This process erases any distinct signatures that could indicate where it was mined, enabling it to be traded easily as a financial asset or used in the jewelry industry. However, law enforcement officials believe that this is beginning to change.
A police initiative called “Targeting Gold” is working to create a national database of gold samples collected from across Brazil. By utilizing radio-isotope scans and fluorescence spectroscopy, investigators can examine the unique elemental composition of gold. This innovative technique, which was first applied in archaeology and later adopted in mining, was pioneered by University of Pretoria geologist Roger Dixon to differentiate between legally mined and stolen gold.
The program, developed in partnership with university researchers, includes the use of particle accelerator technology to examine nano-sized impurities like lead and copper, which help trace the origins of the gold. According to Humberto Freire, director of the Federal Police’s newly-established Environment and Amazon Department, this technology allows scientists to analyze “the DNA of Brazilian gold.”
“Nature has marked the gold with isotopes, and we can read these unique fingerprints with radio-isotope scans,” Freire explained. “With this tool, we can trace illegal gold before it gets refined for export.”
This initiative has contributed to a significant rise in gold seizures since President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva assumed office in 2023, showing a 38% increase in confiscations compared to the previous year. Tightened gold market regulations, including mandatory electronic tax receipts for all gold transactions and stricter oversight of suspicious activities, have further supported enforcement efforts.
Freire estimates that nearly 40% of the gold mined in the Amazon is illegal. In 2020, Brazil exported 110 tonnes of gold, valued at $5 billion, making it one of the world’s top 20 gold exporters. However, exports dropped to 77.7 tonnes last year, a decline that the government attributes to improved law enforcement in the gold mining sector.
Illegal Gold Mining and Its Environmental Impact
The illegal gold rush in Brazil has been fueled by soaring global gold prices, which were driven by geopolitical instability and growing demand from central banks, especially China. These prices have continued to rise, with gold trading at around $2,650 per ounce.
Gold rushes are not new to Brazil, a country with a rich history of mineral exploitation dating back to the Portuguese colonial era. However, the recent surge in wildcat mining—accelerated during the presidency of Jair Bolsonaro—has reached unprecedented levels. Satellite images reveal approximately 80,000 illegal mining operations in the Amazon rainforest today, more than ever recorded.
What was once a domain of individual prospectors using simple tools has now transformed into a large-scale industrial operation, complete with heavy machinery and river dredgers. Criminal organizations play a major role in these activities, smuggling people, equipment, and gold in and out of the region using helicopters and clandestine airstrips. These operations often leave behind toxic ponds of mercury-laden sludge, a byproduct of gold extraction.
Last year, the Yanomami Indigenous territory, Brazil’s largest such reservation, was overrun by thousands of illegal miners, bringing violence and diseases that caused malnutrition and a humanitarian crisis among the tribe. In response, President Lula deployed military forces to the region, although many miners returned after the military withdrew in 2023. Lula’s administration has pledged to end illegal gold mining, deploying special forces from the environmental protection agency, Ibama, into Indigenous reservations and conservation areas.
In addition to environmental damage, organized crime is another major challenge in curbing illegal mining. These illicit activities supply gold to international markets, particularly the jewelry and watch industry in Switzerland, which imports 70% of Brazil’s exported gold.
Neighboring countries such as Colombia and French Guiana are considering adopting Brazil’s gold analysis methods to address their own illegal gold trade, with European governments, including Switzerland and the UK, expressing interest in these traceability measures.
Switzerland, which imports only 1% of Brazil’s gold, is working to ensure that only legally mined gold enters the country. The Swiss embassy has set up a working group with other countries to explore traceability and anti-counterfeiting technologies.
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The Road Ahead
A 2022 study by the Instituto Escolhas found that more than half (52%) of the gold exported from the Amazon was sourced illegally, often from protected Indigenous reservation lands or conservation areas. Despite changes in Brazil’s political leadership, a vibrant lobby for informal gold mining remains in place in the Conservative Congress, with some bills proposing the legalization of wildcat mining.
For now, Brazil continues to strengthen its forensic efforts. In Brasília, the Federal Police criminology institute lab is examining thousands of gold samples with the help of a specialized team led by expert Erich Moreira Lima. The Brazilian Geological Service has collected 30,000 gold samples, and in the coming years, the aim is to map all 24 gold-producing regions of Brazil.
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Geologist Maria Emilia Schutesky and her team at the National University of Brasília are also conducting mass spectrometry scans to identify molecules such as lead that could help trace the origins of the gold.
“We researchers seek a 100% ability to trace gold, but that is more than what the police needs to prove a crime, which is just to establish that the gold does not come from where a suspect claims it is from,” Schutesky explained.
