Source: AFP
BRASILIA — Brazilian police Friday arrested 70 people and were seeking another 21 for allegedly illegally deforesting protected areas of the Amazon jungle.The operation was the culmination of two years' investigation into loggers, rural property owners, forest managers and even public officials in the environmental secretariat of the Amazon state of Mato Grosso accused of falsifying records to allow illegal lumber sales.
The 91 people implicated are accused of causing 500 million dollars' worth of environmental damage, the federal police said in a statement.