RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (AP) – Federal police targeted Brazil’s environmental protection agency Thursday in a crackdown on illegal logging, arresting 48 officials and several independent businessmen.

Authorities alleged that officials within the agency, Ibama, were responsible for allowing the illegal clearing of 119,000 acres of Amazon rainforest over the past two years – much of it on Indian reservations and in national parks.

“This is a very important moment because our government has broken up this high level of corruption,” said Sen. Serys Slhessarenko of Mato Grosso state Police also arrested 32 businessmen connected to logging companies and were looking for 15 more.

Among those arrested was Hugo Jose Scheuer Werle, Ibama’s top official Mato Grosso state.

Police also arrested 46 other workers at the agency and charged them with corruption.

Werle is accused of accepting money from loggers in exchanges for documents declaring the wood was legally removed from the rainforest.

According to federal police, Werle’s personal assets grew by $177,000 during the two years he headed the agency.

The crackdown, announced by Justice Minister Marcio Thomaz Bastos and Environment Minister Maria Silva in Brasilia, the capital, comes just weeks after the government said the Amazon rainforest was disappearing at an alarming rate.

In May, the government announced that the Amazon rain forest shrank by 10,000 square miles in the 12-month period ending last August.

Almost half that destruction occurred in Mato Grosso state, where Werle was in charge of approving forestry management plans submitted by loggers to ensure they complied with strict environmental laws in the Amazon.

Four logging companies operating in Matto Grosso state were ordered to shut down.

The government said it would suspend the transportation of felled tress in the state for 30 days and would inspect all logging companies in Mato Grosso over the next 60 days.

AP-ES-06-02-05 2256EDT