JBS faces 14 European complaints over alleged Amazon deforestation money laundering

The Transnational Legal Coalition dropped 14 legal complaints Wednesday against JBS and the financial firms in its orbit, alleging the world's biggest meatpacker funneled money linked to illegally cleared Amazon land through European banks and advisers. The filings landed with financial regulators in Britain, Ireland, Germany and the Netherlands, plus Britain's National Crime Agency and Dutch bodies that oversee financial and legal professionals. A separate criminal referral targeting JBS's Dutch parent company went to Dutch prosecutors.

The coalition isn't going after Europe's appetite for Brazilian beef — roughly 70% of Brazil's beef stays home, and official data show North America takes the biggest export slice at 21.5%, with Europe at 18.8%. Instead, the groups are leaning on anti-money laundering law, arguing that revenue from cattle raised on illegally deforested land counts as criminal proceeds, and that European financiers had a duty to spot and report it. Bláithín Quigley, coordinator of the newly formed coalition, put it bluntly: 'Illegal deforestation of the Amazon is a crime, not a business model.'

The names on the complaints are heavy hitters. Barclays, Standard Chartered and the London branches of Bank of Montreal and Banco do Brasil are cited, along with Dutch lenders Rabobank and ING, BlackRock Asset Management in Ireland and Germany, and JBS's Dutch legal, accounting and auditing advisers Loyens & Loeff, EY and KPMG. The coalition behind the push includes the Global Legal Action Network, the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights, Mighty Earth, FIND and a King's College London law professor.

JBS pushed back hard, telling the AP it never received the data or methodology behind the allegations, leaving it unable to evaluate or answer them. The company said it has monitored Amazon cattle suppliers since 2010, using satellite imagery and geo-referencing to screen every transaction against a protocol from Brazil's Federal Prosecution Office. That system, JBS said, scans more than 600,000 square kilometers of Brazilian territory daily and automatically blocks farms flagged for illegal deforestation, embargoed status, overlap with Indigenous or quilombola lands or conservation units, or slave-like labor.

The underlying research comes from AidEnvironment, a nonprofit that tracks deforestation and supply chains. Its analysts used Brazil's mandatory animal health and movement records to trace farms tied to cattle bought by 21 JBS slaughterhouses across Acre, Mato Grosso, Para, Rondonia and Tocantins, then cross-checked the properties against official deforestation maps. They identified 3,329 direct suppliers and 9,247 indirect ones. The complaints point to 'cattle laundering' — animals raised on illegally cleared land shuffled to compliant farms before slaughter — though such transfers are routine in cattle production and prove nothing on their own.

Several of the named firms said they hadn't seen the filings. Banco do Brasil, ING and KPMG all said they couldn't comment on documents they hadn't received, with each stressing compliance with anti-money laundering rules. Rabobank declined to discuss specific clients but said its policy bars deforestation financing. Loyens & Loeff and Standard Chartered cited client confidentiality, while BlackRock and Barclays declined to comment. JBS, founded in Brazil in 1953, operates in more than 180 countries, reported $86.2 billion in revenue for 2025 and began trading on the New York Stock Exchange in June 2025 after reincorporating in the Netherlands and moving its headquarters to Amsterdam.