"JBS’ supply chain linked to cattle raised illegally on Indigenous Land", September 2025

...Greenpeace Brazil has revealed that beef from cattle raised illegally on protected Indigenous land in the Amazon rainforest may have ended up on the plates of consumers all around the world after entering the supply chains of Brazilian beef giant JBS.

The new investigation focuses on trade links between JBS and Mauro Fernando Schaedler, a Brazilian agribusiness entrepreneur who owns four properties that border or partially overlap with the Pequizal do Navurôtu Indigenous Land, which is a legally protected Indigenous territory...

...[R]anchers in the region have continued to contest its demarcation as Indigenous land. Among those who have attempted to discredit Naruvôtu’s claim to their territory is none other than Mauro Fernando Schaedler. Schaedler’s farms in the Amazon currently face fines of almost half a million euros from Brazil’s government for a string of environmental offences...Schaedler has managed to sell the cattle illegally raised on Naruvôtu land by transferring cattle reared on Fazenda Três Coqueiros II to another farm, a practice known as ‘cattle laundering’. Between January 2018 and November 2024, Fazenda Três Coqueiros II sent cattle to another farm, Fazenda Itapirana, which supplied cattle to two JBS slaughterhouses.

The JBS slaughterhouse in Água Boa (in Mato Grosso state) received cattle from Fazenda Itapirana from February 2019, until as recently as February 2025. This slaughterhouse is authorised to export to several places, including Hong Kong. The other JBS slaughterhouse, in Barra do Garças, is approved for exports to the EU, Canada, UK and many others. Greenpeace Brazil’s investigation found out that this slaughterhouse purchased cattle from Fazenda Itapirana from 2018 and 2021 and exported meat to several European countries within that time period...

It is relevant to note that the JBS slaughterhouse in Barra do Garças continues to export to Europe today, although Greenpeace Brasil has not identified data indicating that it has bought cattle from Fazenda Itapirana after July 2021...

This investigation provides just one example of how JBS and large corporations profit and expand from the absence of a comprehensive, effective and transparent control system for their supply chain, which indirectly supports environmental damage and the violation of constitutional rights and guarantees, especially the fundamental rights of Indigenous Peoples in Brazil....