An illegal cassiterite mine is seen during an operation conducted by agents of the Brazilian Institute for the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources, or Ibama, in national parks near Novo Progresso, southeast of Para state, Brazil, November 4, 2018. REUTERS/Ricardo Moraes
BRASILIA (Reuters) - Environmental enforcement agents deep in the Amazon rainforest swooped down on an illegal mine in a dawn raid in early November, in a campaign to tamp down on such activities that environmental groups say have reached epidemic scale.
The operation was carried out against a handful of what are now known to be hundreds of illegal Amazon mines in Brazil that have been catalogued for the first time in a study released on Monday.
