Brazil police bust gang of Amazon loggers

Brasilia (Brazil) Mar 3: Brazilian police arrested at least 25 members of an illegal logging scheme in the Amazon rain forest today as part of a crackdown on deforestation in the world's largest rain forest.

Loggers, government officials and truckers were arrested in the vicinity of Altamira in northern Para state, where Sister Dorothy Stang, a U.S. nun, was gunned down by ranchers in 2005 for her defense of landless peasants and the environment.

Police have 35 arrest warrants.

The suspects ''laundered wood'' through a complex scheme of false shipping and bank documents, police agent Jorge Eduardo told Reuters by telephone from Altamira.

The group included officials of the environmental protection agency Ibama, who alerted timber mills to scheduled inspections.

Police have made several arrests of illegal loggers in recent years but only acted in Altamira since 2005.

''Trucks of wood used to roll out of here with no control at all. After, the death of Sister Dorothy, the state arrived in Altamira,'' said Eduardo.

The government says Amazon deforestation dropped by about a third between August 2005 and July 2006 from a year earlier. In 2005, areas the size of Israel or Wales were destroyed.

Environmentalists say reduced deforestation is due less to increased law enforcement and more to lower commodity prices, which led to a reduction in land-clearing for soy farming and cattle ranching.

Reuters