A Brazilian labour court found Volkswagen Brazil guilty of subjecting workers to slavery-like conditions at its Vale do Rio Cristalino ranch between 1974 and 1986, ordering an apology, a zero-tolerance policy, and around $30 million in damages.
- On 29 August 2025, a Brazilian labour court ruled Volkswagen Brazil guilty of subjecting rural workers to conditions equivalent to slavery between 1974 and 1986 on its Vale do Rio Cristalino ranch, according to media sources. Volkswagen was accused of illegal recruitment and coercion of rural workers, debt bondage and forced indebtedness, and degrading working and living conditions. The Court ordered Volkswagen Brazil to issue a formal apology, implement a “zero-tolerance” policy for slave labour, and pay $30 million in damages. According to media sources, Volkswagen has said it will appeal the decision.
- Volkswagen pointed to police investigations in the 1970s and 1980s that cleared it of any wrongdoing. The Court, however, stressed that the lack of accountability during the military dictatorship does not prevent liability today, media reports said, citing international precedents such as the “Fazenda Brasil Verde” case before the Inter-American Court on Human Rights. Volkswagen argued that it did not hire the workers directly and that recruitment was carried out through labour intermediaries, distancing itself from responsibility. In Fazenda Brasil Verde, the Court said that past failures or weak investigations cannot be used as an excuse for human rights violations connected to slave labour. The judge emphasised that it is the State’s duty to reopen investigations whenever new evidence emerges or when prior inquiries are shown to have been incomplete or biased.
- Brazilian prosecutors charged Volkswagen Brazil on 5 December 2024, after failed attempts at conciliation dating back to 2019, according to media coverage. The case drew on testimony, documentation, and research conducted by Federal University of Rio de Janeiro professor and priest Ricardo Rezende Figueira, who investigated the abuses.
- The investigation was opened by Brazilian labour prosecutors in 2019 and found that only 300 workers were directly hired by Companhia Vale do Rio Cristalino Agropecuária Comércio e Indústria (CVRC), a Volkswagen subsidiary. The remainder, which likely amounts to hundreds of workers, were hired by labour intermediaries known as ‘cats’ using deceptive recruitment practices, media reports noted. These workers were hired from poor regions and promised good salaries and working conditions, but instead carried out the most physically demanding work, including chopping down rainforest and clearing land for the cattle ranch under harsh and slavery-like conditions.
- According to media reports, the investigation uncovered evidence of significant human rights violations including
- Debt bondage – workers were forced to buy their own tools, food and housing materials, which left them in debt bondage. One worker interviewed claimed he never received any wages because they all went to paying off debt
- Excessive working hours – workers were forced to work more than 11 hours a day, often including weekends and holidays
- Degrading working conditions – workers had to make their own shelters from wood and plastic sheets. They also had to wash in and drink water from a stream, in some cases sharing contaminated water sources with cattle
- Lack of adequate healthcare – no medical care was provided for workplace injuries with equipment including scythes and chainsaws, or from exposure to malaria. There are reports of some workers dying from malaria
- Threats of violence – contractors often carried guns and threatened workers with violence. Workers who tried to escape were beaten and, in some cases, killed. There are reports of bodies of workers discarded in nearby rivers or caves
- Vale do Rio Cristalino ranch was founded in 1973 and covered 139,000 hectares of land intended for livestock and timber extraction, which made it one of the largest agricultural projects in the Amazon during this period. The farm was run by Volkswagen’s subsidiary, CVRC. The company received financial support from Sudam (Superintendence of Amazon Development) and Banco da Amazônia. It also received tax incentives from the military government of Brazil at the time, which was encouraging multinationals to invest in the region.