"Major US trader StoneX bought illicit gold from the Amazon rainforest", 20 February 2025

...Major US financial services company StoneX has bought millions of dollars worth of gold from a company linked to illegal mining, deforestation and mercury pollution in the Amazon rainforest, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ) and Repórter Brasil can reveal.

Documents show that one of StoneX’s Brazilian suppliers sourced gold from a vast network of informal miners from across the Amazon, including some sanctioned by Brazil’s environment agency...

Although informal miners can’t export directly, major international traders can still obtain illicit gold via licensed exporters. Documents seen by TBIJ show that in September 2023, one such company, Coluna, sold StoneX a $4.6m (£3.7m) consignment of gold that included sanctioned miners among its suppliers.

The two companies were still doing business as recently as October 2024, when StoneX bought another two batches of gold for £1.2m, though it is not known whether any of this gold was illicit...

The revelations stem from an incident in September 2023 when customs officers in São Paulo stopped a $4.6m cargo of gold destined for a StoneX subsidiary in Dubai. It was held after officers at the airport found a discrepancy with the weight that had been declared by Coluna.

Coluna filed a legal challenge to release the cargo and, in so doing, revealed a sprawling supplier network of wildcat miners.

Wildcat activity surged in Brazil after Jair Bolsonaro became president in 2019 and has been linked to toxic pollution, the devastation of Indigenous lands and threats to local communities...

StoneX told TBIJ it is a responsible member of the global precious metals industry and conducts extensive due diligence. The company added that it follows robust policies and processes to verify the legitimacy of origin of all precious metals it acquires, sourcing all such metals in strict compliance with applicable legal and regulatory requirements.

StoneX said the metal blocked from leaving Brazil was already in the Brazilian banking system when the company purchased it, and that StoneX collected the required certificates of origin and background documentation. It added that Coluna, which continues to export to this day, was licensed by the Central Bank in Brazil. Coluna did not respond to requests for comment...

The documents Coluna handed over to the authorities include almost 1,200 invoices from wildcat miners to two of the intermediaries that supply Coluna...

StoneX is a member of the London Bullion Market Association (LBMA), which promotes responsible sourcing of precious metals and sets industry standards for companies.

Alan Martin, its head of responsible sourcing, said: “LBMA takes all accusations regarding the improper sourcing of gold with the utmost seriousness [and] maintains strict rules for both its members and accredited refiners.”

Martin said that LBMA investigates any potential violation it is made aware of and noted that Brazilian authorities’ investigation into the blocked Coluna cargo was ongoing and had not yet found any definitive conclusions of wrongdoing. Nor had the LBMA seen any evidence of a violation of its rules for members in its own preliminary investigation. The LBMA is well aware of the sourcing challenges caused by wildcat miners in the Brazilian Amazon region and has worked to highlight the issue, he added...

Although StoneX’s Dubai operation was the listed recipient for the seized $4.6m consignment, the gold was in fact to be loaded on a commercial Swiss International Air Lines flight to Zurich, raising further questions about the traceability of Amazon gold sold internationally. It is unclear whether or not Switzerland was the final destination...

Swiss International Air Lines told TBIJ: “We ensure transportation to the highest security standards, and we always adhere to the applicable sanctions and other trade regulations”...