6. Rio Tinto
Rio Tinto is a mining company that operates mostly out of Africa, and you can probably already see where this is going. As the biggest private mining company in the world, they provide much of the world’s raw aluminum and copper—along with uranium, gold, and diamonds—and might have theworst track record for human rights violations ever (which, on this list, is kind of a big deal).
It started in the 1970s, when Rio Tinto was discovered to have been running illegal uranium mines in Nambia, and using the profits to support the apartheid government in South Africa—in return, the government allowed Rio Tinto to keep operating in the area. Additionally, Rio Tinto maintained its own private mercenary army to keep blacks from rising up against them and the government. Oh and also, the uranium mines used “brutal slave labor,” in the words of the United Nations Council that dealt with the matter. SEE ALSO: 10 most evil humans alive today (With Pictures)
But far from getting shut down, Rio Tinto went on to bludgeon humanity and the environment further at every turn. In 1981, it turned out that one of their Canadian uranium mines had been exposing workers for years to radiation levels more than seven times the legal limit. In Indonesia, they have tortured and killed opponents of their gold mines. And in 2000, an ex-security guard at their gold mine in Brazil revealed that security workers were urged to use violence to keep the miners complacent. It’s basically modern-day slavery.
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