Illegal Amazon cattle are the proceeds of crime – Barclays, Standard Chartered and others in the frame

Cattle raised on land illegally cleared in the Brazilian Amazon are the proceeds of crime under European anti-money laundering rules, according to a coordinated set of complaints filed this week.

The argument places the world’s largest meat company, JBS, and a group of its major financial and professional service providers – including Barclays, Standard Chartered, BlackRock, KPMG, EY and the Dutch law firm Loyens & Loeff – under scrutiny for alleged AML failures.

On 4 November 2026 the Transnational Legal Coalition (TLC), a newly formed network of lawyers and advocacy groups including Mighty Earth, the Global Legal Action Network, the European Centre for Constitutional and Human Rights and researchers from King’s College London, lodged 14 complaints across the United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands and Ireland. A separate criminal complaint was made to Dutch prosecutors against JBS N.V., the company’s Dutch-registered parent.

The coalition’s central claim is straightforward.

• Under Brazilian law, clearing certain protected land for cattle is a criminal offence. Animals raised on that land are therefore, in the coalition’s view, criminal property.

• The profits generated from those animals, and any payments flowing to European banks, asset managers, auditors or lawyers, trigger enhanced due-diligence and reporting obligations under EU and national AML regimes.

• Long-standing commercial relationships with JBS, the complaints argue, meant the named institutions should have identified and acted on the risk.

The filings rest on research commissioned from AidEnvironment.

• It links JBS’s direct and indirect suppliers to more than 6.5 million hectares of Amazon deforestation between 1988 and 2026 (approximately 3.4 million hectares via direct suppliers and 3.2 million via indirect).

• In the sample examined, more than 80 % of suppliers showed deforestation inside protected areas such as Legal Reserves and Areas of Permanent Preservation.

• The figure is sometimes expressed as roughly 16 million acres. Important limitations are acknowledged in the underlying material and subsequent reporting: the majority of the linked deforestation occurred before mid-2008, and Brazilian cattle-transport permits track lots rather than individual animals, so the data cannot prove that any specific animal from a problematic property reached a JBS slaughterhouse.

JBS has rejected the allegations.

• The company says it has monitored Amazon cattle suppliers by satellite and georeferencing since 2010, analysing more than 600,000 km² daily, and automatically blocks farms linked to illegal deforestation, embargoed areas, Indigenous or conservation lands, or slave-labour indicators.

• It has also stated that it was not given the full methodology or underlying data.

• Barclays has indicated that it reviewed the complaint but declined further public comment, noting that it has applied enhanced due diligence to beef clients since 2021.

• Other named parties have not issued detailed public responses.

The complaints do not themselves constitute findings of wrongdoing.

• They request investigations by the relevant regulators and prosecutors (including the FCA and NCA in the UK, BaFin in Germany, the Central Bank of Ireland, and Dutch authorities).

• None of the allegations has yet been tested in court or by a supervisory authority.

Noval approach

• The approach is novel in its attempt to treat environmental crime in a global agricultural supply chain as a proceeds-of-crime issue under existing AML frameworks.

• It sits against a background of repeated investigations linking JBS to Amazon deforestation and cattle “laundering”, substantial historical financing relationships (including Barclays’ role as a major creditor), and the company’s recent relocation of its parent to the Netherlands in connection with its New York Stock Exchange listing.

Sources

• https://globalinvestigationsreview.com/article/jbs-barclays-targeted-alleged-aml-violations

• https://insideclimatenews.org/news/04112026/meat-company-sued-for-money-laundering/

• https://www.riotimesonline.com/jbs-money-laundering-complaints-europe/

• https://g1.globo.com/meio-ambiente/noticia/2026/11/04/coalizao-de-organizacoes-ambientais-apresenta-14-denuncias-contra-jbs-a-orgaos-reguladores-da-europa-empresa-diz-que-nao-teve-acesso-ao-conteudo.ghtml

• https://www.duurzaam-ondernemen.nl/maatschappelijke-organisaties-doen-aangifte-tegen-vleesgigant-jbs-in-amsterdam-wegens-witwassen/