PERU: Logging Firm Accused of Using Workers’ Identities for Tax Fraud

[Judi Lynn]

PERU: Logging Firm Accused of Using Workers’ Identities for Tax Fraud
By Milagros Salazar

PUCALLPA, Peru, Jan 30 (IPS) - Impoverished local residents of the Amazon jungle town of Orellana in Peru have filed a complaint against a logging company for using their identity documents to commit tax fraud in illegal timber sales worth more than 200,000 dollars.

The affected workers say they took no part in the swindle and never saw any of the money, and accuse the Consorcio Maderero company of hatching the entire scheme.

The company holds one of the 240 logging concessions granted by the National Institute of National Resources’ office on forestry and wildlife (Intendencia Forestal y de Fauna Silvestre) in a region which concentrates nearly half of all of the concessions awarded in the country.

Orellana is a two-day river journey from the city of Pucallpa, 850 km northeast of Lima, in the Amazon region of Loreto, an area of great biodiversity.

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