Organized crime spreading along Amazon highway, study finds

What BBN said about it

1. 

   Hank Ledger · Lead AnchorA new study says criminal groups now dominate large sections of land around a highway cutting through one of the biggest stretches of forest in the Brazilian Amazon.

2. 

   Dale Bearman · Chief Skeptic & ContributorThe highway is called the BR-three-nineteen, it opened in nineteen seventy-six, it was abandoned in nineteen eighty-eight, and maintenance resumed in twenty fifteen.

3. 

   Dale Bearman · Chief Skeptic & ContributorIt's had a rough life, Hank.

4. 

   Hank Ledger · Lead AnchorThe groups are tied to illegal logging, illegal gold mining, land grabbing and cattle ranching, Mongabay reports.

5. 

   Hank Ledger · Lead AnchorLead author Lucas Ferrante says the region is becoming a hub of large farms controlled by organized crime.

6. 

   Dale Bearman · Chief Skeptic & ContributorAnd here's the number I can't put down. He says the illegal access roads already add up to six times the length of the highway.

7. 

   Hank Ledger · Lead AnchorSix times. So technically the highway is the side road.

8. 

   Dale Bearman · Chief Skeptic & ContributorBrazil is still moving ahead with improvements, and in April the president used a new legal loophole to skip environmental licensing. A loophole, on a road that's mostly loopholes.

9. 

   Hank Ledger · Lead AnchorThe government did create four new sustainable development reserves in September, covering six hundred sixty-eight thousand hectares near the highway.

10. 

    Dale Bearman · Chief Skeptic & ContributorFerrante's estimate is at least twenty-eight federal checkpoints on the side roads. Three are planned.

11. 

    Hank Ledger · Lead AnchorTwenty-eight needed, three planned. The other twenty-five will have to be very polite.