On Tuesday, a raid of an illegal gold mining site in Brazil's Amazon rainforest revealed the use of Elon Musk's Starlink internet. Federal agents of the Brazilian environment agency and the federal highway police discovered a Starlink satellite terminal alongside a gold-mining pit. The First Command of the Capital, Brazil's most dangerous criminal organization, is believed to be behind this illegal mining.

Starlink was introduced as a division of SpaceX in 2019, with the goal of providing low latency broadband internet to underserved areas. In January 2022, Brazil adopted it as part of a government-led project with the intention of providing internet to schools in rural areas and monitoring the Amazon rainforest.

While the government-led project has yet to get off the ground, the use of Starlink by illegal mining groups has increased rapidly. Illegal miners have utilized internet for coordination for some time, but Starlink offers the