WASHINGTON, September 4, 2021 (AFP) – A US company was ordered to pay US$200,000 to Peru for importing illegally harvested wood from the Peruvian Amazon, US officials said Friday (3). gave information.
Global Plywood and Lumber Trading LLC, headquartered in Nevada and operating in California, pleaded guilty in a federal court in Washington to violating the Lacey Act, which prohibits trading of lumber without identifying its source. Is.
“The company acknowledged that it was not careful when importing illegally sourced wood into the United States from the Peruvian Amazon,” the Justice Department said in a statement.
According to the prosecution, in August 2015, Global Plywood purchased approximately 1,135 cubic meters of wood from three Peruvian suppliers.
The cargo, which included species from the Amazon region of Loreto, arrived on the ship Yaku Kalpa in Houston on September 27, 2015, where it was confiscated by Customs.
Subsequent investigations showed that about 92 percent of imported timber was illegally harvested and transported, said the Justice Department, which conducted the investigation in cooperation with Peruvian authorities.
Prosecutors said Global Plywood, which dissolved in 2017, admitted that it had not reviewed forestry processes or import licenses and confirmed irregularities.
For this reason, the US District Court for the District of Colombia on Friday ordered the company to pay $200,000 in damages to the Peruvian Ministry of the Environment in addition to a $5,000 fine.
Peru was rocked by the Yacu Kalpa scandal in November 2017, when the NGO Global Witness revealed that large timber exporters from the Peruvian Amazon had sent millionaire shipments to Mexico and the United States, knowing that their origins were not legal. Was.
ad/dl/jc
