BRASILIA: Harley Sandoval, an evangelical pastor, real estate agent, and mining entrepreneur, was arrested in July 2023 for the illegal export of 294 kilos of gold from Brazil’s Amazon to the United States, Dubai, and Italy.
On paper, the gold was listed as coming from a legal mine Sandoval was authorized to operate in the northern state of Tocantins. However, authorities revealed that no gold had been mined there since colonial times.
Using advanced forensic technology and satellite imagery, Brazil’s Federal Police confirmed that the exported gold did not originate from the Tocantins site. Instead, it was traced back to three illegal wildcat mines in neighboring Pará, some located on protected Indigenous lands, according to court documents from November 2023 seen by Reuters.
This case marks one of the first in Brazil using this new technology to combat illicit trading, which may account for up to half of the country’s gold output. Illegal gold mining has surged in the Amazon, contributing to environmental destruction and criminal violence.
Seizures of illegally mined gold have increased seven-fold in the past seven years, according to Federal Police data obtained by Reuters.
Sandoval, who was released pending trial and continues his ministry with his wife at a Pentecostal Evangelical church in Goiania, denies the charges. He argues that once gold is melted into ingots for export, its origin becomes impossible to trace.
“That’s impossible. Gold must always be melted down before export,” he told Reuters by phone.
THE DNA OF GOLD
Historically, tracing the origin of gold has been challenging, especially after different batches are melted together, which erases their individual signatures. Once melted, gold can easily be traded as a financial asset or used in jewelry.
However, investigators say this is starting to change. A police initiative called “Targeting Gold” is building a database of samples from across Brazil, using radio-isotope scans and fluorescence spectroscopy to determine the unique composition of elements in gold.
Pioneered in mining by University of Pretoria geologist Roger Dixon, this technique was originally used in archaeology and helps distinguish between legal and stolen gold.
The program, developed in collaboration with university researchers, uses a particle accelerator in São Paulo to study nano-sized impurities in gold, such as dirt or metals like lead or copper, which help trace its origin.
Humberto Freire, head of the Federal Police’s Environment and Amazon Department, stated that 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. “This tool allows us to trace illegal gold before it’s refined for export.”
The program has contributed to a significant increase in gold seizures since leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva took office, with a 38% rise in 2023 compared to 2022, according to government data seen by Reuters. New regulations, including mandatory electronic tax receipts for all trades and tighter monitoring of suspicious transactions, have also contributed to the increased enforcement, Freire said.
“We estimate that around 40% of the gold extracted in the Amazon is illegal,” he told Reuters. Brazil exported 110 tonnes of gold worth $5 billion in 2020, according to official data, making it one of the world’s top 20 exporters. Last year, exports dropped to 77.7 tonnes, a decline the government attributes to better enforcement against illegal mining.
