Amazonas state, Brazil June 19, 2024. REUTERSBruno Kelly
HARLEY Sandoval, an evangelical pastor, real estate agent and mining entrepreneur, was arrested in July 2023 for illegally exporting 294 kg of gold from Brazil’s Amazon to the United States, Dubai and Italy.
On paper, the gold was sourced from a legal prospect Sandoval was licenced to mine in the northern state of Tocantins. But police said not an ounce of gold had been mined there since colonial times.
