Sao Paulo (CNN) – Five Starlink internet devices were found Tuesday during raids by Brazil’s environmental police in illegal mining areas in the Amazon, the environmental agency said.
Starlink are small, easy-to-use satellite dishes made by Elon Musk’s private rocket company, SpaceX. According to Starlink, its devices “can provide high-speed, low-latency broadband internet to remote and rural locations around the world.
The equipment itself is not illegal, but can be used for illegal activities, according to the Environment Agency. Communication can be challenging in the Amazon, and the small satellite dishes aid in communications between illegal miners.
In this image provided by Brazil’s Environment Agency, federal agents destroy an illegal mining barge in the Yanomami indigenous territory, Roraima state, Brazil, Tuesday, March 14, 2023. An illegal mining camp pictured February 24, 2023, in the Yanomami area of Roraima State, Brazil.
“The aim of the raids on this indigenous territory is to cut off supply lines to the illegal mine so that it can no longer be supported and to force the invaders to withdraw,” the agency said in a statement.
The Yanomami territory, which spans the Brazilian states of Roraima and Amazonas, is said to be a protected reserve where mining is illegal. But in recent years, as gold prices have boomed, miners have inundated the area, destroying the natural environment, bringing disease and, in some cases, displacing vital health workers.
A satellite-based report by Brazilian NGO Instituto Socioambiental (ISA) found that mines on Yanomami land had increased from four in 2015 to 1,556 by the end of 2021.
CNN has reached out to SpaceX for comment.
Previous coverage by CNN’s Tara John and Rodrigo Pedroso.