Federal Police technology to map environmental crimes in the Amazon by satellite
18 de June de 2025
By Marcela Leiros – From Cenarium
MANAUS (AM) – With activities started this Tuesday, the 17th, the International Police Cooperation Center of the Amazon (CCPI Amazon), coordinated by the Federal Police (PF), will operate to combat environmental crimes and other illicit activities using Córtex, a satellite monitoring platform that provides images with up to three meters of resolution. The center is considered a milestone in combating illegal deforestation, illegal mining, and other crimes in the Amazon region.
The ceremony was attended by the Minister of Justice and Public Security, Ricardo Lewandowski; the PF director-general, Andrei Rodrigues; the president of the National Bank for Economic and Social Development (BNDES), Aloizio Mercadante; the national justice inspector, Mauro Campbell Marques; the national public security secretary, Mário Luiz Sarrubbo; the director-general of the Federal Highway Police (PRF), Antonio Fernando Souza Oliveira; the state deputy Dan Câmara; the director of Amazon and Environment of the PF, Humberto Freire; and the coordinator of CCPI Amazon, Paulo Henrique Oliveira.
The CCPI Amazon, located in Manaus (AM), will house departments and members of national and international Public Security forces, representing the nine States of the Brazilian Legal Amazon (Amazonas, Acre, Amapá, Pará, Tocantins, Rondônia, Roraima, Maranhão, and Mato Grosso), as well as the countries that have the biome within their territory (Brazil, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, France due to French Guiana, Peru, Suriname, and Venezuela).
For Ricardo Lewandowski, the CCPI Amazon is an experiment on how police forces from different countries can act jointly against crime in the region. “If this works, and it will work, it will be an example for the world,” he declared at the ceremony marking the start of the center’s activities in the Amazonian capital.
The Lula government minister also emphasized the need for a “very large” effort by authorities to combat environmental crimes in the Amazon, considering the territorial extension of the forest and illicit activities like illegal mining, which are constantly being rebuilt. The Amazon covers 6.7 million km², encompassing nine South American countries.
“We fulfill our duty, we destroy the equipment of illegal miners, but it happens that they [the miners] are an economic force and quickly rebuild the lost equipment. I am certain, I am convinced, that with this International Police Cooperation Center, we will have funding from BNDES that will allow us to buy more equipment, invest more in intelligence, and everyone could see that we have here a satellite control system that captures details of what occurs on the ground, which will help us greatly in combating this illegal mining,” he declared.
Regarding Córtex, a tool of the Secretariat of National Public Security (Senasp), linked to the Ministry of Justice and Public Security (MJSP), the system will be used to monitor illicit activities in various areas using filters such as “Indigenous Territories” and “conservation units.” It is also possible, according to the tool’s presentation, to select which environmental crimes should be monitored, such as deforestation, wildfires, and illegal mining, as well as set the period to be analyzed.
PF director-general, Andrei Rodrigues, spoke about the technologies used by the center to combat illicit activities. He recalled that the corporation already works with projects like the Satellite Project Brazil+, funded by Senasp and MJSP, and “Gold Target Project,” which tracks the origin of gold from seizures and mining.
“So, there are various actions, besides tools, systems, access to our Federal Police databases, access to the Secretariat of National Public Security databases, which will be available to this group of police officers here in this environment,” he added.
Asked about the PF’s personnel in the Amazon region, Andrei stated it will be sized according to demand. The director-general also said other countries and entities, such as Interpol, Maripol, and Europol, are expected to have personnel at the center.
“All planning presupposes personnel, sizing the personnel. So, at this moment, we already have here the nine countries [of the Amazon], the nine states, besides Interpol, Meripol, Europol, police officers from Italy, who have already requested to come, police from Italy, Spain, France, obviously, which borders us, and who will be here doing this monitoring, intelligence work and feeding the police network for the operation,” he stated.
The work will be coordinated by the Federal Police, in integration with Senasp, PRF, and the National Force. The center’s structure includes intelligence service, operations and logistics divisions, video monitoring room, crisis office, press room, among other spaces aimed at coordinated action.
Funding
According to the PF, the center is considered one of the federal government’s main deliveries within the Amazon Plan: Security and Sovereignty (Amazon Plan), resulting from commitments made in the Belém Letter and by the States of the Legal Amazon. The initiative is the result of a partnership with BNDES and the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change, with resources from the Amazon Fund, which approved R$ 318.5 million for the plan.
Specifically for the CCPI project, R$ 36.7 million in non-reimbursable funds are foreseen for renting the property for three years and acquiring equipment, furniture, vehicles, and boats. BNDES president Aloizio Mercadante spoke about the resources allocated to the project, highlighting the strengthening of security in the region with equipment to be provided to the forces.
“It is a project that had its first phase already approved, R$ 318 million. We have already transferred about half of that amount. There is still a portion to be disbursed, and it involves, besides the headquarters, drones, armored boats, medium-sized helicopters, and, in parallel to this experience, we have also distributed R$ 45 million to all Amazon states, all, to combat fires, to buy equipment to fight fires,” he added.
The Amazon Fund was created in 2008 with the goal of enabling national and international support for projects for the conservation and sustainable use of forests in the Legal Amazon, a region that includes nine States: Acre, Amapá, Amazonas, Mato Grosso, Pará, Rondônia, Roraima, Tocantins, and part of Maranhão.
