Companies linked to the Master case use federal public lands to generate R$45 billion in carbon credits

Banco Master

#Banco Master

Two companies at the center of the investigations involving Banco Master have achieved a combined valuation exceeding R$45

5 billion.

This billion-dollar fortune was built on millions of so-called “carbon stock credits,” which allegedly originate from a vast area of “”the Amazon rainforest.

The problem is that this land, approximately 144,000 hectares and located in the municipality of Apuí, Amazonas, belongs to the Federal Government and has been officially designated for an agrarian reform settlement project since the 1980s.

By law, public areas of this type cannot be used to generate private economic benefits, such as the creation of these credits.

The companies in question are Golden Green and Global Carbon.

Both are controlled by investment funds managed by Reag, a management company that is being investigated by the Federal Police in operations that are investigating suspected money laundering, including possible links to organized crime.

The mechanism worked as follows: a carbon inventory was conducted in the area by researchers from Unesp (São Paulo State University), who estimated a stock of approximately 169 million tons of CO2 in the forest.

Based on this estimate, the companies created “carbon stock credit” units and assigned increasing values “”to them over the years.

Audits carried out by large international companies, such as Ernst & Young, PwC, and Crowe, approved these calculations and value updates, progressively increasing the declared assets.

At some points, each unit was valued at almost R$ 200.

With tens of millions of units, the total numbers exploded: Golden Green was worth more than R$ 14 billion, while Global Carbon, which started in 2020 with a share capital of only R$ 100, reached R$ 31 billion in 2024.

However, these credits do not actually exist in the real market.

Genuine carbon credits require effective and proven emission reductions, certification by internationally recognized programs, and, most importantly, real transactions.

In the case of these companies, it is merely an internal estimate of preserved carbon stock, without any proof of sale or real economic backing.

They used instruments such as Rural Product Certificates (CPRs) registered even in offices abroad to give the appearance of security to the numbers.

The National Institute for Colonization and Agrarian Reform (Incra) confirmed that the area is public and exclusively intended for agrarian reform.

According to the agency, any attempt to trade carbon assets based on this forest is irregular and causes harm to the Union.

Incra has already adopted administrative measures and is preparing legal actions to combat the situation.

The Apuí region, in southern Amazonas, is known for the advance of deforestation and the practice of land grabbing, which makes the use of its forest as a basis for a business of this size even more questionable.

The companies and funds involved are part of the complex financial network being investigated in the Master case, although the defense of the main figure linked to the bank claims that he is not directly a shareholder, manager, or administrator of these companies.

In short, the case reveals how internal carbon estimates on land that could not be used for this purpose were transformed, through audits and creative accounting, into an apparent fortune of tens of billions of reais-a scheme that now faces serious legal and regulatory challenges.

Published in 01/19/2026 00h47

Portuguese version

Text adapted by AI (Grok) and translated via Google API in the English version. Images from public image libraries or credits in the caption.

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