Invisible gold: How illegal cassiterite from the Amazon supplies global giants without leaving a trace - O GLOBO

In the depths of the Amazon, the mineral that solders the microchips in artificial intelligence devices, appears on your cellphone screen, and fuels the global energy transition has become the new frontier for organized crime in the rainforest. Confidential documents from Operation Hephaestus Forge by the Federal Police and investigations by the Federal Public Prosecutor's Office (MPF), obtained exclusively by O GLOBO, reveal how cassiterite—dubbed the "black gold" of extractivism—illegally extracted from the Yanomami Indigenous Land and the Campos Amazônicos National Park allegedly supplied the supply chain of global giants such as Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Walt Disney, and Sony, among others like Starbucks, Caterpillar, PepsiCo, Colgate-Palmolive, Victoria's Secret, and even jeans manufacturer Levi's.

Identified as one of the world's largest producers and suppliers of tin and solder, the Brazilian company White Solder, headquartered in Ribeirão Preto (SP) with branches in Manaus (AM) and Ariquemes (RO), has become a defendant in court, accused of leading a scheme of receiving, refining, and laundering that moved at least R$200 million under the guise of a "green compliance" facade between 2020 and 2025. Between May and August 2021 alone, accounting records seized by the Federal Police showed the illegal flow of more than 525 tonnes of ore. Cassiterite is the raw material found in nature, from which pure tin is extracted after smelting and refining.

Rivaling traditional gold for its astronomical liquidity and ease of large-scale distribution, the "new rush" for tin exposes major corporations that, by purchasing hundreds of tonnes of refined tin accompanied only by formal papers and lenient audits, finance the ecocide in the Amazon, albeit under the shield of "willful blindness."

In Manaus, O GLOBO followed the steps of the MPF investigation, which laid bare the fragility of international compliance. This report is the first of three in the series "Invisible Gold," focusing on how illegally extracted minerals from the Amazon feed the global technology and jewelry supply chain and why tracking them is nearly impossible.

The prosecutors cross-referenced audit reports presented by White Solder with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) database. The tracking revealed that the Brazilian smelter was formally listed as an active tin supplier in the balance sheets of global giants listed on American stock exchanges. In light of this finding, ten multinational companies operating in Brazil were notified in the civil investigation for serious failures in their socio-environmental and human rights due diligence mechanisms.

In an unprecedented move, the MPF not only sought compensation from the defendants in the criminal complaint submitted and accepted by the 4th Federal Court of Roraima; prosecutors established compensation of R$1.7 billion as a pedagogical and reparatory measure for the entire chain involved, for collective environmental, patrimonial, and moral damages resulting from the extraction, transportation, industrialization, and commercialization of cassiterite and gold illegally mined in protected territories investigated by Hephaestus Forge, an allusion to the mythical workshop of the Greek god of fire and metallurgy.

This demand, explains Prosecutor André Luiz Porreca of the 2nd Office of Western Amazon, responsible for the states of Roraima, Rondônia, and Acre, is based on legal theories for environmental damage such as "indirect responsibility for pollution" and "objective and joint liability," where companies cannot evade responsibility by claiming third-party fraud, force majeure, or lack of direct corporate links with the local refinery. It is incumbent upon large tech companies to actively demonstrate the clean origin and legitimacy of the tin they purchased.

— I'm asking for these amounts based on analogous cases. My criteria were, in summary, the gravity of the facts, the sophistication of the criminal scheme, the economic capacity of the offenders, and the duration of the illicit activity — states Porreca.

Despite boasting international seals such as the LME Brand from the London Metal Exchange and the endorsement of the Responsible Minerals Initiative (RMI), White Solder operated under "willful blindness" and greenwashing, according to the MPF. Messages and documents seized from the cellphone of partner-manager Alessandro Torrente revealed that the smelter itself funded the costs of the facade branch in Roraima and managed the freight of clandestine ore. White Solder did not comment before the publication of this report.

In the Yanomami territory, in Roraima, extraction operated with a technical division of labor. In the Baixinho and Pupunha mines, excavators and pumps were operated by organized groups: raizeiros cleared the vegetation, jateiros built containment structures, and maraqueiros operated sediment suction. Field coordinators like Valdeci Aparecido Cardoso, a miner known as "Keké," organized the teams and reported daily extraction volumes to financiers and operation partners, including Jidalias dos Anjos Pinto, known as "Tiziu" (a former state deputy), and Felipe José da Silva Galvão, who acted as an aircraft pilot. The structure relied on its own clandestine aviation logistics, operating from runways opened in the forest, as well as the use of mercury in associated gold mining.