Meat-packer JBS faces complaints filed in Europe over alleged links to illegal Amazon deforestation

MANAUS, Brazil (AP) — A coalition of environmental and human rights advocacy groups has filed 14 legal complaints with European financial regulators and prosecutors against JBS, the world’s largest meat company, along with its banks, investment managers and advisers, accusing them of facilitating money laundering linked to alleged illegal Amazon deforestation.

In the filings, the group said Wednesday that JBS laundered proceeds connected to allegedly illegal deforestation in its Brazilian beef supply chain. The complaints were filed with financial regulators in Britain, Ireland, Germany and the Netherlands, as well as Britain’s National Crime Agency and Dutch bodies overseeing financial and legal professionals. A separate criminal referral against JBS’s Dutch parent company was filed with Dutch prosecutors.

The coalition hopes to prompt investigations and put financiers and advisers on notice about potential legal consequences of deforestation in JBS’s supply chain.

“Illegal deforestation of the Amazon is a crime, not a business model. Indigenous communities and various civil society groups have been fighting corporate profiteering from this destruction for decades," said Bláithín Quigley, coordinator for the newly formed Transnational Legal Coalition, or TLC.

The coalition “was formed to coordinate legal efforts to tackle involvement in serious environmental crime, across global value chains,” he added.

JBS said in a statement to The Associated Press that it had not received the data or methodology behind the allegations, preventing the company from independently evaluating the claims or responding to them.

“Since 2010, JBS has monitored its cattle suppliers in the Amazon. Using satellite imagery and geo-referencing, it assesses each transaction against industry-wide criteria set out in a protocol established by Brazil’s Federal Prosecution Office,” the company said.

“The system analyzes more than 600,000 square kilometers of Brazilian territory every day and automatically blocks farms with illegal deforestation, embargoed areas, overlap with Indigenous lands , quilombola territories or conservation units, or slave-like labor,” JBS added.

The coalition of groups includes the Global Legal Action Network, the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights, Mighty Earth, FIND and a law professor from King’s College London.

The legal rationale for bringing the cases before European authorities is JBS' ties to financial institutions in Europe, not the continent's consumption of beef from JBS, according to the TLC. Around 70% of the beef produced in Brazil is consumed domestically. Of the country’s exports, official data show that the largest share goes to North America, with the U.S. at 21.5%. Europe accounted for 18.8% of Brazilian beef exports.

By turning to European authorities, the coalition hopes to use anti-money laundering laws to hold companies and their financial partners accountable for proceeds linked to alleged illegal deforestation. The complaints allege that JBS uses revenue from sales of such cattle to pay EU-based financiers and advisers, triggering obligations under anti-money laundering laws.

The group targeted Barclays, Standard Chartered and the London branches of Bank of Montreal and Banco do Brasil; Dutch banks Rabobank and ING; BlackRock Asset Management in Ireland and Germany; and JBS’s legal, accounting and auditing advisers in the Netherlands: Loyens & Loeff, EY and KPMG.

The AP contacted all the companies named in the complaints. Rabobank declined to comment on specific clients but said its policy bars financing deforestation, accepting new clients whose land has been illegally deforested since Jan. 1, 2018, or taking as collateral Amazon land deforested after that date, even when the clearing was legal. The bank added that it is committed to preventing and detecting money laundering and regularly strengthens its controls to protect the integrity of the financial system.

Banco do Brasil said it had not seen the complaint and that it complies with anti-money laundering rules, monitors environmental and social risks, and follows industry guidelines aimed at addressing illegal deforestation risks in the beef supply chain.

ING also said it has not seen the complaint and thus could not comment. The company said it works with high-risk clients in line with international standards while applying safeguards against financial crime, but it does not comment on individual client relationships.

KPMG said it has not been contacted or seen any document from TLC and therefore could not comment. The company added it complies with applicable anti-money laundering laws and professional obligations.

Loyens & Loeff and Standard Chartered said that they could not comment due to client confidentiality. BlackRock and Barclays also declined to comment.

Founded in Brazil in 1953, JBS operates in more than 180 countries and reported $86.2 billion in revenue in 2025, according to its U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filings. It began trading on the New York Stock Exchange in June 2025 while retaining a listing on Brazil’s B3 exchange. As part of the move, JBS incorporated in the Netherlands and moved its headquarters from Sao Paulo to Amsterdam.

The complaints argue that revenue from cattle raised on allegedly illegally cleared land constitutes criminal proceeds and that banks, investment managers and professional advisers failed to meet obligations to detect and report suspicious transactions. They draw on commissioned research by the nonprofit AidEnvironment, which monitors deforestation and supply chains. Researchers used Brazil’s mandatory animal health and movement records to identify farms linked to cattle purchased by JBS slaughterhouses, then cross-referenced those properties with official deforestation maps.

AidEnvironment’s analysis covered 21 JBS slaughterhouses across five states in Brazil’s Amazon region: Acre, Mato Grosso, Para, Rondonia and Tocantins. It identified 3,329 direct suppliers and 9,247 indirect suppliers.

Brazilian beef cattle generally pass through three stages -- breeding, rearing and fattening -- on one farm or across several properties. Direct suppliers sell cattle to slaughterhouses, while indirect suppliers breed or raise them earlier in life.

These transfers can enable “cattle laundering”: animals raised on illegally deforested land moved to compliant farms before slaughter, concealing their origins. Transfers are also routine in cattle production and do not, by themselves, indicate wrongdoing.

Brazil has made progress in reducing deforestation, but cattle ranching remains the main driver of it. Ranchers clear large swaths of forest so cattle can graze. Biodiversity is threatened as trees that absorb carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming, are replaced by cattle that emit methane, which also exacerbates the climate crisis.

JBS has faced legal complaints in Brazil over illegal deforestation. In October 2025, Rondonia’s government overruled its own state attorneys and rescinded a fine against JBS for trading cattle raised in a deforested protected area. The case followed a four-year investigation, but the state attorney general later said the fine relied on legislation no longer in force.

When the lawsuits were filed, JBS declined to comment on its operations in Rondonia. However, it cited an audit, published by Brazil's Federal Prosecution Service in 2023, that found 94% of its cattle purchases were from legal sources. When the audit was released, the company said it was working toward “100% compliance” while noting it worked with thousands of cattle sellers across the region.

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