Brazil-based federal prosecutors want 26 meat packers to pay fines totaling more than $200 million for buying cattle raised illegally, according to The Associated Press. Brasil Foods, the country's largest food company, is on the list and the company faces possible fines totaling $8.8 million.
Prosecutors in the Amazon jungle states of Amazonas, Mato Grosso and Rondonia, want the companies to pay $278.5 million for producing beef products from cattle raised in environmentally sensitive regions, on indigenous reservations and at farms that have been blacklisted for labor violations, the federal prosecutors' office said in a statement.
During the first nine months of 2012, the 26 companies allegedly bought and slaughtered approximately 56,000 head of cattle raised illegally, the statement added.
