A Reuters investigation of 36 voluntary carbon-offset projects in the Brazilian Amazon found that two-thirds of them involved landowners, forestry firms or developers previously fined by the federal environmental agency Ibama for illegal deforestation offences ranging from unauthorised clear-cutting to falsifying timber-tracking data. In 20 cases, fines pre-dated the projects’ registration with carbon-credit standards bodies, and in seven instances the penalties continued afterwards. The projects appear attractive to global emitters; companies have spent hundreds of millions of dollars on the credits, helping make the voluntary carbon market worth US$7.6 billion over the past five years. Buyers identified by Reuters include Boeing, Spain’s Telefónica and Colombia’s Ecopetrol, which say they relied on independent certification for quality control. Non-profit Verra—by far the largest registry—and Colombian rival Cercarbono have begun reviews and formal investigations into the flagged projects after Reuters presented its findings. Both organisations said there is no current evidence that the credits fail to cut emissions but pledged to probe allegations of wrongdoing. The revelations cast a shadow over Brazil’s efforts to expand both its voluntary and soon-to-be regulated carbon markets as part of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s green-growth agenda ahead of the UN COP30 climate summit in November. Officials at the Finance and Environment ministries said Ibama’s enforcement database should be used to screen future projects to prevent carbon finance from bankrolling further destruction of the world’s largest rainforest. One of the most prominent figures in the sector, physician-turned-entrepreneur Ricardo Stoppe Junior, was arrested in 2024 in an anti-“greenwashing” police operation that accused him of laundering more than one million cubic metres of illegal timber. Authorities froze US$300 million in assets tied to Stoppe; his projects have since been suspended by Verra while he awaits possible charges.