ESG Enforcement Tracker

Key facts:

Brazil’s Federal Police has charged 31 individuals in connection with an alleged R$180 million fraud involving two REDD+ (Reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation) projects named Unitor and Fortaleza Ituxi. The investigation is part of Operation Greenwashing, launched in June 2024, by the Federal Police in Rondonia.

Two lengthy reports in December 2024 and May 2025, respectively, describe how those under investigation are said to have used falsified documents and falsified data to register properties and protected areas that in fact belonged to the Federal Government. The objective was to inflate the number of hectares “preserved” and generate non-existent carbon credits.

Brazil’s Federal Police found that the two REDD+ project areas were generating carbon credits at the same time they were being used to launder timber taken from other illegally deforested areas. Previously, the Centre for Climate Crime Analysis had identified inconsistencies between the volume of timber declared to authorities and the logged volume estimated through satellite images.

The police allege that Ricardo Stoppe Jr., known as Brazil’s largest individual seller of carbon credits, led one of the three interconnected groups involved in this criminal carbon credit scheme. According to the police investigation, the scheme was facilitated by corrupt public officials working in Brazil’s agency responsible for land reform.