Johan Eliasch

• Swedish Tycoon

• 52-year-old London-based businessman

• Estimated net worth of 790 million dollars in 2008

• Boss of the Head sports equipment company

• Environmental consultant to the then Britain's prime minister Gordon Brown from 2007 to 2010

• Was regarded as "a millionaire with a conscience"

• Founder of a British-based charitable organization called Cool Earth whose aim is to find sponsors to buy up Amazon rainforest in order to protect it.

• Conservative Party- Deputy Treasurer (2003–07)

Johan Eliasch

• Bought 400,000 acres of the Amazonian rainforest, an area the size of Greater London in 2006

• Bought from a logging company for $14,000,000 for the sole purpose of its preservation (That's $35 an acre)

• He said he bought it to save it, to preserve its plants and wildlife -and, by preserving old-growth forest, to do his bit towards counteracting rising CO2 levels.

• He said he has been thinking about environmental issues for a long time.

Gethal – A company owned by Johan Eliasch

• Gethal holding owns 57 tracts of land in the Amazon totalling 1,212 square kilometers(468 square miles) of forest.

• Gethal has accumulated 150 thousand hectares in the forest; but that by 1999, it only had authorization to handle 90 thousand hectares

• Brazil's police and intelligence services had been investigating Eliasch's interests in Brazil in 2008.

• Eliasch interests in the country were being investigated more intensely after he claimed that foreigners could buy the entire Amazon for 50 billion dollars

• Official statistics showed deforestation of the Amazon was accelerating.

• Had been fined 275 million dollars (450 million reals) in June 2008 by IBAMA (Brazilian Government’s Environmental Agency)

• Illegally cutting down 230,000 of Amazon rainforest & lacking certification for Amazon land it owns.