Bangkok Post – 'Phantom Cows' Skandal Rockt Uruguay

Artigas, Uruguay – Sandra Palleio is looking for her lost cows. The 60-year-old accountant stands at the end of an agricultural route in a remote Uruguay region near the border with Brazil on a muddy field.

It is 600 kilometers from the capital Montevideo to find 61 cattle that she has, at least on paper. The missing cattle were part of a “cow binding” scheme that collapsed, which led to one of the largest financial scandals in Uruguay.

The co -owner of a Uruguayan company who took money from savers to invest in cows died by suicide. Three companies have gone bankrupt and are examined for fraud.

“Hello Moo-Moo! Could one of you belong to me?” Hopefully Palleio came to a paddock in the border region of ARTIGAS, with her jeans being involved in mud when she approached a wire fence to take a closer look at the cows.

Palleio – like hundreds of other investors – cannot find or prove the animals that they own or prove that they exist at all what makes them a flock of “phantom cows” that could count over 700,000 beef superiors.

So far, the losses have risen to around 350 million US dollars and the stable agricultural nation roamed, which is only based on 3.4 million people – but 12 million cows.

It has also sent shock waves through larger ranch neighbor Argentina and Brazil, which the cattle tracking system from Uruguay were operated as a model and in which similar investment schemes were operated by the cattle.

In March 2024, Palleio put her saving of life of over $ 50,000 in the cattle investment program offered by a local company called Conexión Ganadera, which was attracted to promises from fixed 7-10%returns and investment materials with bucolian pictures of Braun-White-Hereford-Vieh.

Savers could have cows directly, which were raised and sold by cattle companies for profits or would take over an investment share in the overall system.

Palleio, an urban specialist, liked the idea of ​​having a tangible capital. It seemed to be a safe bet. She was able to pursue the cows over a state-supported online portal years of having to follow the cattle tracking, in which breed, age and location were determined worldwide.

Each cow was to be branded with a symbol assigned by the government, and documents in which its assets are listed was promoted the coat of arms of the Ministry of Agriculture that monitors the Vide Register.

The National Viper Register of Uruguay refused to comment on the cases.

When she went in search of her cows, Palleio wore print copies from the cattle registration to see whether she could match the 53 tracking numbers connected to the 53 with the tags of the cows that they stared on the opposite side of the fence.

With her smartphone camera, she zoomed in the tracking numbers that were recorded on her ears. Only a few of the matching numbers soon became. Then the cows drove back. She couldn't come close enough. The exercise felt hopeless.

“It feels like falling into a nightmare,” said Palleio. (Story below)

Tesla Crash suicide

Three of the largest fraud companies are Conexión Ganadera, República Ganadera and Grupo Larrarte, who convinced almost 6,000 people or investor pools between them to shop in the program and invest millions of dollars.

Similar investment systems exist throughout South America, in Argentina, Brazil and Colombia. Many are legitimate.

Martín Fablet, a local radio presenter in Montevideo, said that he has invested several times in Conexión Ganadera and other cattle programs in Uruguay in the past 12 years: “This system that worked well for at least 11 years.

The first indication of the scandal in Conexión Ganadera took place on November 28 of last year when a Tesla Model 3 car collapsed at 211 kilometers per hour in the small town of Florida in the central Central -Uruguayan. Behind the steering wheel was Gustavo Basso, one of the co -owners of Conexión Ganadera, who had been booming since the opening in 1999.

Weeks after driving his car into a parked construction vehicle, investors reported their payments from the cattle program too late, and in January the company confirmed that it was almost 250 million dollars. A forensic doctor concluded in April that Basso had died through suicide.

Conexión Ganadera was one of the three means to warn at the end of last year that they were unable to fulfill the obligations to investors. They had little cash that accused them of for the undesirable weather (there was a drought in 2022-23) and hard market conditions.

By the end of January, investors tried to withdraw savings in the middle of fraud reports. Some submitted for defects that led to bankruptcy proceedings and an official investigation by the Uruguay public prosecutor's office due to money laundering crimes. The prosecutor refused to comment on Reuters.

Pablo Carrasco from Conexión Ganadera denies allegations of fraud. Lawyers who represented Conexión Ganadera said they could not surrender to legal proceedings until a certificate was given in court. Grupo Larrarte's lawyer said the law firm was fully worked with the authorities. República Ganadera did not respond to a Reuter's request for comments. (Story below)

“Maybe the cows were counterfeiting”

Politicians, radio presenters, pensioners and even priests are among the thousands who are now trying to regain their savings – and their missing Phantom cattle, the number of which the number is difficult to commit.

One inventory of the largest company, Conexión Ganadera, which was carried out by an insolvency administrator, estimated that the company that the company has to be managed only 70,000 to 80,000 of the 804,604 cattle existed.

In another legal proceedings in fraud allegations, the Urinzenium for Agriculture and the cattle (MGAP) in Uruguay announced in March that one of the most important cattle companies in Conexión Ganadera, Pasfer, had only 49 of the 3,740 cows, which are kept as collateral for a loan.

“We do not know if the cows have ever been bought, whether they are alive or dead,” said Palleio while driving along the Country alley to the Artigas Ranch. “Maybe the cows were counterfeiting or sold, somewhere or her tags have been changed.”

The victims want to know how the authorities could not recognize the problems despite the cattle register.

Three lawyers for victims said it was possible that the government issued by the government were never bound to the animals because the animals were never bought and investments were used for other purposes. Two other lawyers represented by investors in bankruptcy and fraud cases indicated that cows were sold illegally without consent.

Each company was responsible for applying the tags and in the crime data to the national register. “The register reflects what the company has provided. The problem is that there was no control over what the company made available,” said one of the lawyers, Nicolás Hores, who represents 98 victims.

Hores said he had gone to several farms and found that the number of cattle did not match the registration. Two other investors who spoke to Reuters with told similar stories about the attempt to find their cows.

Uruguay's Ministry of Viehminium did not answer Reuters whether the registration system had failed.

Investigated company

A manager of Grupo Larrarte, the first company that receives formal complaints from investors, is already in prison as part of an ongoing criminal investigation, which is separated from the insolvency proceedings. In April, Jairo Larrarte was put in a preventive imprisonment by a judge for alleged crimes of embezzlement, fraud and the exhibition of poor checks.

In an answer to Reuters, his lawyer Enrique Möller said that his client had fully teamed up with the authorities and that cattle had already been returned to some investors. República Ganadera announced a voluntary bankruptcy in November that had rejected the courts in March because the authorities opened an investigation of the company's accounts.

Negotiations with the creditors continue and the company said in a declaration of March 25 that “the best possible solution for those affected. The company did not respond to Reuters' inquiries about comments.

There are several open studies on Conexión Ganadera, the largest of the three. The company's co -owner, Pablo Carrasco, his wife Ana Iewdiukow and the widow of Basso, Daniela Cabral, are examined for fraud and embezzlement.

In February, all three were temporarily held away from leaving Uruguay without judicial approval and confiscating their passports. The lawyer of Carrascos, Jorge Barrera, said there was no comment on the media.

snake charmer

Basso, whose high -speed crash presented the downfall of the company, lived on a large scale in the city of Florida, in which a small city feeling lived and 30,000 people were surrounded by arable land.

Fablet, the local radio presenter, said that he had hit Basso about 50 times over the course of a decade, social and while he covered agricultural events for radio. “(Basso) was a snake applicant,” said Fablet, a long -time investor in Conexión Ganadera. “He could never just lose $ 250 million … he could have made a loss, but this money has to be somewhere.”

Back on the artigas farm, Reuter's drone material showed around 80 animals compared to what several hundred listeners should have with Palleio and other investors. Farmers on the ranch explained that more animals were traveling in other areas. Several delays mentioned in salary payments since the scandal broke out, and they said that there was no easy way to check which, if at all, belonged.

Palleio himself was upset about how the case injured so many hard -working Uruguayians. At times she had accepted three jobs to put together a neste for her retirement.

“We have invested all of our savings that made us a lot of effort,” she said with emotions. “Now we want justice.”