"Brazil probes Mercado Libre sales of mercury used by illegal gold miners", 25 January 2024

...Public prosecutors chasing illegal gold mining in Brazil’s Amazon region...opened an investigation into on-line sales of mercury through Mercado Libre, Latin America’s largest e-commerce site.

The Federal Prosecutors’ Office recommended Mercado Libre ban mercury ads from its platform, or inform authorities who is placing them and establish better controls over the trade in what it called “an extremely dangerous pollutant.”

Wildcat miners in the Amazon use liquid mercury to agglutinate gold particles and separate them from ore and dirt when they dredge through muddy excavations in the rainforest...

“Mercado Libre sales platform has been used indiscriminately for trading liquid mercury without any control over the origin of the material or the parties involved in the transactions,” the prosecutors recommendation said.

Mercado Libre said it was ready to help prosecutors with their investigations into the sale of prohibited products.

“As soon as such products are identified, the ads are removed, the seller is notified, and they could be banned from the platform,” Mercado Libre said in a statement...