"Brazilian police burn gold miners’ boats in Amazon", 30 November 2021

...Brazil’s government says police burned 131 boats used by illegal gold miners in the heart of the Amazon rainforest...

In a Twitter post on Monday, Justice Minister Anderson Torres described the raid as “quick and efficient”. Federal police were aided by agents of Brazil’s navy and environmental enforcement agency IBAMA, officials said.

Most of the fires were east of Manaus, capital of the Amazonas state, in a region of dense forest.

According to the Associated Press news agency, on Saturday smoke began wafting over the Madeira River, where images over the last week have shown hundreds of boats gathered as miners searched for gold...

Local media said three people had been jailed and an undetermined amount of gold had been seized in the operation...

“Federal police came by boat and told everyone to get out – they used pepper spray and told us to back off. Everybody left with only the clothes they were wearing,” the 26-year-old Ribeiro, who denied he was conducting illegal mining on the river, told AP...

Amazonas state prosecutors said in a statement that authorities must coordinate a plan within 30 days to end the presence of mining boats on the Madeira...