BRASÍLIA, BRAZIL -- Brazilian Environment Minister Ricardo Salles is suspected of involvement in a trafficking ring that sold illegal timber on the black market, a Supreme Court ruling said as police raided various ministry offices Wednesday.
The ruling suspended 10 high-ranking environmental officials in President Jair Bolsonaro's government from their posts, while police investigate what Justice Alexandre de Moraes called an "extremely serious scheme to facilitate the contraband of rainforest products, allegedly with the involvement... of Environment Minister Ricardo Salles."
Salles was not among the suspended officials, but Brazilian media reports said police were searching his home Wednesday morning.
And the Supreme Court ruling granted police access to his bank accounts to search for evidence of illicit income.
Some 160 officers also raided environment ministry offices in Brasilia, Sao Paulo and the northern state of Para, federal police said.
Activists and experts accuse Salles of systematically dismantling environmental protection programs in Brazil, where the destruction of the Amazon rainforest has surged since Bolsonaro took office in 2019.
In April 2020, the minister was recorded telling a cabinet meeting that the government should take advantage of the distraction created by the coronavirus pandemic to relax environmental regulations.
He later denied that he wanted to gut environmental protections, saying he meant only that the government should try to cut red tape.
TREES 'SING FOR JOY'
The suspended officials include Eduardo Bim, the head of the Brazilian Institute of the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (IBAMA), a government anti-deforestation agency. IBAMA's head of environmental protection was also suspended.
In Salles' ministry, the ruling suspended a special advisor and an assistant secretary for biodiversity.
Environmental group Greenpeace called for Salles himself to be added to the list.
"In the battle between protecting our forests and benefiting criminals, Brazil's current government has made clear which side it's on -- and Ricardo Salles is a central figure in the effort to undermine environmental authorities' ability to do their jobs," it said in a statement.
Salles is one of the most controversial figures in far-right leader Bolsonaro's government.
Under his watch, deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon surged by 9.5 per cent in the 12 months to August 2020, destroying an area bigger than Jamaica, according to government data.
Salles came under fresh scrutiny last month when the federal police chief for the state of Amazonas, Alexandre Saraiva, was replaced after he went to the Supreme Court to accuse the environment minister of helping illegal loggers operating in the Amazon.
Saraiva celebrated the latest news as vindication of his accusations, though the two court cases are not directly related.
"Let all the trees of the forest sing for joy," Saraiva wrote on Twitter, quoting a Bible verse.
