A web of front people conceals environmental offenders in the Amazon

BUJARI, Brazil — “This one is famous!” the attendant at a farm equipment store in the town of Bujari exclaimed when asked about José Carlos Bronca. The name is also familiar to the man working at a small barbecue restaurant and to a farmer with half a dozen head of cattle on his property at the margins of the federal road connecting Bujari to Rio Branco, the capital of Brazil’s Acre state. “This is a big farmer,” he said, mentioning Bronca’s ranch on the outskirts of town.