The world's biggest meat company is built on corruption and it's growing in Australia | Four Corners

[Music] meat in many ways has become the new commodity [Music] we've seen it now being traded on a global scale it's largely controlled by a handful of companies which have got outposts right across the world but jbs is the biggest of them all you've probably never heard of the global food giant jbs but chances are you're eating their products they would be our biggest producer of protein in australia and and growing [Music] the control they exert is enormous i think australians would be horrified if they knew the truth about jbs jbs is a family empire built on corruption this is certainly one of the biggest corruption schemes ever revealed in the world hundreds of politicians receiving dirty money i think it will come as a surprise to a lot of your viewers that a brazilian company linked to so many scandals has been allowed to come into australia and expand in the in the way that it has from crimes against the environment to insider trading and putting workers at risk i really feel if i have acted in the way that they have acted i think i would be in jail around the world governments are holding jbs and its billionaire owners to account fraud bribery other violations of federal laws jbs we should have really started to clamp down on jbs which become a monster if you will years ago but here in australia jbs has been given the green light to grow you have to ask what is going on why is that company so supported by our politicians these seas don't belong to jbs they're not the brazilian butcher seas they're out seas and it's not theirs to destroy just for the sake of their greed tonight on four corners we investigate the rise and rise of the global food giant jbs we examine how bribery and corruption has fueled its expansion around the world including right here in australia where jbs is taking more and more control of the food we eat [Music] oh tammy and stuart jonas run a small piggery near dalesford in regional victoria late last year they were blindsided when corporate meat giant jbs moved in on their industry i mean i was gutted i just thought no please not jbs take over our abattoir because they increasingly on more and more of the soldering facilities in australia and that means they get to define the terms of what gets slaughtered when how much and how much money they pay for those animals the takeover of pork company riverly gave jbs control of three out of four major pork abattoirs in southeastern australia making jbs the biggest pork processor in the country i think you'll find most farmers are concerned about these things you'll hear some say oh but it's great that you know jbs own everything all around the world and they're very good at what they do they're the experts in the in the field right but but that's not actually what the track record is why does that matter though to a farmer like you because i don't want to process with a company that is actually corrupt and yeah i don't want to work in that system at all which everything we do here is in opposition to that [Music] the rivoli acquisition bolsters jbs's growing domination of australia's meat industry the company owns some of the most popular brands that end up on our plates from could you to cuddle slow there ain't no mistaking the taster makes primos [Applause] if you walk down the street and said who's jbs no one would know and i think look that's been clever in their sense they've created brands within their brand so where people may know it as a particular brand of beef by name you know an angus cut or so on jbs has not put their name out there as such to be known in the cities but in the bush everybody knows who they are jbs is a major supplier of supermarket giants and fast food chains like mcdonald's the company employs 14 000 people in australia across more than 50 sites with what they do the reach they have you know to trucking to transport to buyers to operators to plant people to employing people they're they're they're the biggest in our rural industry by far within annual revenue of 65 billion us dollars jbs is a powerhouse in food production it produces something like 13 million chickens a day over a hundred thousand pigs and seventy thousand cattle that's each and every day so that gives some size on the scale of this company [Applause] [Music] the brothers behind jbs's world domination are two of brazil's richest men billionaires wesley and joesly batista they have like many aeroplanes they had houses big houses in sao paulo joasley loves yachts he just loves it wesley is very practical in joe wesley he is the financial mind of the empire he is more the mastermind of the whole story their enormous wealth stands in stark contrast to the brothers humble beginnings in regional brazil their family empire grew from a small butchery founded by their father in 1953. i don't think that they imagined they would become the biggest mix packer in the world but they were very ambitious and very aggressive business journalist and author raquel landon started investigating the batistas 15 years ago when jbs embarked on a multi-billion dollar global spending spree that was the time when they started to buy a lot of companies and we didn't know anything about them so they were coming out of the blue jvs stunned the global food industry in 2007 when it snapped up the american meat giant swift foods the deal instantly turned jbs into the world's biggest beef company swift let's make your meals when they arrived at the u.s market the u.s press politicians and the competitors had the same feeling that we have in brazil who are they the takeover of swift and its subsidiary australian meat holdings also made jbs the largest beef processor in australia from there the acquisition spree continued at the time it seemed a really good move here was a situation coming in overseas company plenty of money obviously knew what they were doing everything would be great for industry veterans like david baiard the scale and speed of jbs's expansion was breathtaking just came out of nowhere it was a terrible rapid rise they brought tasman beneath and then they started from there in tasmania they brought in they bought king island longford and and devonport they bought three avatars in tasmania which was quite a big junk of a tasmanian processing sector as ceo and president of jbs swift wesley batista often visited australia where he talked up their big plans you've spent all this money do you have further expansion plans in australia a couple of weeks ago you know we announced the tasman acquisition we we definitely have intention to continue to spend our business here in australia butcher and producer craig cook remembers meeting the beef baron at an industry event i remember it very clearly i was part of the australian media industry council and we were introduced to mr batista he arrived in brisbane and did a wonderful explanation of why they were coming he said we want to feed the world and we walked out of there all sniggling and sort of thinking oh yes okay gonna feed the world but he was right there have long been questions about jbs's meteoric rise and where all the money for these acquisitions was coming from our investigation has uncovered how the company was able to gain its foothold here in australia fueled by years of corrupt dealings in brazil jbs's dirty deals started unraveling in 2017 during a major corruption crackdown in brazil there was a real momentum to fight corruption in brazil during this period that's when the corruption of jbs was revealed the prosecutors started to came after jbs and then joyez lee decided that he was not going to allow that jbs become bankrupted that he is going to act first he is going to act to protect his company and his family prosecution the batistas and some of their closest executives signed a plea deal in exchange for immunity they sensationally confessed to a massive bribery scheme spending 150 million dollars on more than 1800 brazilian officials this is certainly one of the biggest corruption schemes ever revealed in the world the amount of money involved the amount of people individuals being bribed hundreds of politicians receiving dirty money specifically in a key admission joe wesley batista told prosecutors that jbs's global expansion was made possible through bribery he confessed to paying kickbacks to brazil's finance minister to obtain billions of dollars in cheap financing from the public bank bndes foreign be so big if he didn't receive so many money from the bnds the company wouldn't be so big if it wasn't for the bribes that allowed these criminal contracts the main objective of the bribery of jbs of of public banks and pension funds was to obtain capital to its expansion to its investment so it obtained capital in a very privileged condition and uh through bribery through political influence that this company had and its competitors never had [Music] when news of the scandal broke protesters poured onto the streets and the brazilian stock market went into free fall [Applause] when you have the state absolutely defrauded by systemic grand corruption this goes directly to the daily lives of people here in brazil to settle corruption charges jbs's parent company agreed to pay one of the biggest fines in global corporate history 3.2 billion us dollars but the scandals kept coming within months the brothers were arrested accused of insider trading by selling down their shares in jbs before entering into the plea deal [Music] the batista brothers were jailed for six months and banned from running jbs for two years when the arrests in brazil occurred which was around 2017 then that triggered the the our the u.s department of justice uh to begin an investigation fraud bribery other violations of federal laws in the united states politicians fired up over the implications of jbs's criminal behavior in brazil congresswoman rosa deloro was one of the strongest voices their entrance in the united states is very very interesting because it was really illegal they entered illegally into our our our markets um what you know has been uncovered is that they have bribed uh uh uh paid off brazilian officials uh in order to be able to get the loans to amass the capital and then entered the united states and purchased you know swift and then subsequently other other companies as uh as well which it's put them in the position of having enormous market power in october 2020 jbs's parent company pleaded guilty to u.s foreign bribery charges an fbi investigation found it paid millions of dollars to corrupt brazilian officials to obtain financing to buy american companies they were convicted in the united states in violation of the foreign corrupt practices act it is all through bribery and illegal activity that they have managed uh to put themselves in the place of being one of the largest meat packing corporations uh in the uh in the country and in the world [Music] since the conviction in the united states the ceo of jbs's australian operations has been keen to distance the local company from crimes abroad allegations of corruption and bribery is that a big negative for the company the bethesda brothers you mentioned are no longer involved in the running of the business in any way shape or form they are still shareholders that's a that's a true statement what happened in brazil is unfortunate and then no way reflects how we operate our business in the us or australia but four corners has found what happened in brazil is directly linked to the company's success in australia jbs's entry and early expansion here was funded by the cheap financing that was obtained by paying bribes in brazil the australian connection to the bribery scheme was examined during an investigation led by brazilian federal prosecutor ivan marks i don't know if it was we were stubborn i was for me i was just trying to to see the truth and protect the interesting of the the government brazilian government and the the people his team investigated how dirty money was funneled into international acquisitions including jbs's entry into australia through swift foods in 2007. that purchase was bankrolled with funding secured as a result of joe wesley batista bribing brazil's finance minister joe asley batista also confessed to another bribe that helped underwrite jbs's next move in australia in australia the funds were used for the expansion of jbs abroad basically swift argentina swift from the united states and also companies like the tasman group from australia if um money from loans that were obtained illegally because of bribes were used to fund ventures in australia then the proceeds of those ventures are the proceeds of criminal conduct it's the same thing if you robbed a bank and you took five bucks from that bank robbery and you bought a lottery ticket then and you won a million dollars then the million dollars is subject to seizure as the proceeds of criminal conduct because if not for robbing the bank you wouldn't have had the five dollars and you wouldn't have bought the lottery ticket so the same thing it applies here former fbi agent deborah laprevot says the australian connection to the bribery scheme warrants greater scrutiny certainly the fact that bribes are being paid at the time in brazil that jbs was expanding into both the u.s and the australian markets caused is a great opportunity for international collaboration between the australian federal police and the fbi and i think it would be it would be beneficial to both either to ensure that jbs isn't involved in criminal activity or to determine if they are to what extent brazilian authorities say they're ready to assist any australian investigation if there are any interesting of the authorities of australia to investigate anything like this we are here and we are able to help the corrupt deals in brazil have allowed jbs to tower over their australian competitors do you think it matters that corruption finance their global acquisitions of australian american companies other companies around the world i mean i think it matters when corruption finances anything and again as a producer i don't want to do i don't want to do business with a company that's uh known for corruption like who does and and we don't have a choice right [Music] jbs's crimes extend well beyond corruption journalist andrew wasley has spent years investigating jbs's environmental track record in the amazon rainforest a lot of brazilian beef farming is carried out in the amazon which is an incredibly important environmental area as we know and what we found early on was that jbs's claims in terms of protecting the environment and preventing deforestation didn't match the reality that we were hearing about on the ground we've been monitoring 100 of our suppliers to protect the amazon biome from deforestation despite jbs's pledge to protect the amazon it has been repeatedly accused of buying cattle raised on illegally cleared land together for the amazon jbs from the work we've done we've found that jbs is supply chain its beef supply chain in brazil in particular has been repeatedly linked to deforestation in the amazon and other areas late last year several european supermarkets dropped some jbs beef products from their shelves over concerns the meat was sourced from illegally deforested land shipping records revealed jbs brazil is exporting similar tinned beef to australia to be sold at kohl's the receipts that the bureau of investigative journalism obtained revealed that jbs was exporting quite large quantities of brazilian beef through to australia i think australian consumers should be concerned about this because they could be unwittingly buying a seemingly innocuous beef product from the supermarkets that could actually be linked to very serious environmental impacts thousands of miles away in the amazon which is the world's biggest rainforest the company's catalogue of global scandals includes food safety breaches and anti-competitive practices jbs and its parent company have shelled out hundreds of millions of dollars in fines and settlements over price fixing allegations in the u.s on worker's safety jbs has recorded the highest rate of serious injuries of all american meat companies they exploit workers they have more violations in the workplace then you know on average than than than almost any corporation and they are exploiting their workers by creating an environment that is unsafe and putting a workers at risk [Music] four corners has discovered jbs's appalling record in the workplace extends to australia too we've uncovered serious and repeated failures by the company to protect its own workers from injury and even death i just wanted to work and i was only 17 or something like that and i just wanted some money and i thought the meat works would be a good chance to get some money going and a good little start john kiriona hodge worked for jbs at its abattoir in longford tasmania six years ago my little area was the gut room and so i'd be in there with all the beef stomachs and stuff [Music] and i'd have to empty them out clean them out get them all ready for to be washed and turned into tripe the gutting room where john worked was an accident waiting to happen the tripe often became stuck in the machinery after it was rinsed in a tub of scolding water to dislodge it john and other workers would climb onto the edge of the tub they'd see me on there give me a thumbs up because i know what i'm doing they know that i'm keeping it all flowing and i'm you know and all i was doing is my job and sticking to like trying to keep the the production line flowing you know just being a company guy like one morning in november 2016 john slipped and fell in my left leg has gone into the water and um i couldn't get my um i couldn't get out of the tub with myself and so i had and i couldn't pull onto this chain i had no the leverage i was getting wasn't enough and so i had to put my right leg in the water and then just walk a couple steps but my gun boots are now filled with boiling like hot water and then i just start screaming i rip my climb out of this bloody tub that i'm in because i'm the only person down there and um i'm just ripping my pants off and i'm screaming for water and then this guy um good guy he gave me water but it was through a high pressured hose and so he just like carted my the skin all the blisters on my legs and and then my the bottoms of my feet were stuck to the concrete it was rather brutal it was um messed up [Music] john suffered second and third degree burns from his feet up to his thighs the brutal time and it just took away a lot like it took a lot out of me as a just you know i was 19 when it happened and and now for the last five years all i've been doing is like recovering and doing appointments and just stuff i didn't think i wouldn't have to do like so jbs was fined 150 000 in the end a magistrate found jbs knew there was a safety problem and failed to fix it john has received a payout of just under half a million dollars so you can see here where the water came up too yeah that's the line of the skin grafting like that's as far as they needed to graft and it went from the all the way there down and this leg and my foot as well jbs was convicted of workplace safety breaches and find one hundred and fifty thousand dollars but yeah it's still very tricky like they've moved on they've earned all the money back that they've lost on fines like they're all good them just they're just you know they don't even think about it like it's it's brutal like sorry you're right in february 2017 only three months after john's accident a jbs worker in new south wales was killed on the job i really feel if if i have acted in the way that they have acted i think i would be in jail heather rancloud's son warwick was working as a contractor at jbs's karuna feedlot during bushfire season [Music] the sky was glowing red day and night it was extreme heat wave conditions it was dry hot it was in these conditions that a jbs manager working with warwick started clearing a paddock with a tractor and sparked a grass fire he didn't dial triple zero as most people would do he called warwick to come back and warwick did that went back and this fellow wanted a fire break put in and so he took his loader onto the edge of the the paddock that was on fire to make a fire break and the wind changed the grass fire took off it went under his loader and his machine was engulfed in fire [Music] the report that we got was that he had burns to 90 of his body his lungs were damaged and yeah and so it was it was not good they said it wasn't not likely that he would survive after two days on life support warwick died in hospital it's an absolute tragedy for us that's that is with us for the rest of our lives but i feel it was negligence that you know for goodness sake like they shouldn't have been out slashing in a heat wave [Music] jbs was convicted and fined three hundred thousand dollars during the court case it was revealed there'd been two previous fires at the site sparked in similar circumstances in the months leading up to warwick's death despite the known risk jbs kept no record of those fires and failed to train any of its staff around the danger have you received any support from the company since warwick died or even during that time he was in hospital personally i've only taken one call from jbs and that was to tell me i could go out and pick up the burnt out loader that was the one call i had taken i've had an invoice sent to them for the funeral expenses and the ambulance expense of taking him from karuna to tamworth to rural north shore hospital and just a refusal so they haven't paid for the ambulance no no no good morning good night guys nice to meet you jared nice to meet you thanks for having me on board i'm not worried absolutely the open waters of storm bay on tasmania's east coast are home to australia's booming salmon industry and jbs's new frontier it's a very profitable industry because they get given these waters for almost nothing the salmon industry faces relentless criticism over its impact on tasmania's waterways and coastal communities one of australia's most renowned authors richard flanagan is a fierce opponent each of these fish pens is like a vortex of squalored filth it's like a series of floating feed lots stacked on top of each other and swirling around in this toxic toilet fish and urea and ammonia are tens of thousands of salmon last august jbs launched a 425 million takeover bid for human aquaculture the second largest salmon producer in the country why would a global meat company like jbs be attracted to invest in tasmania's salmon industry what's the draw card the salmon industry is seen as at the really lucrative end of the protein production business it's effectively unregulated you get instead of having to buy land to put your feedlots and sale stools and battery hen farms in you get given the sea to destroy it's it's a great racket to become part of and they see it as part of a global strategy they want to get into aquaculture globally and they've expanded out from beef into chicken and pork and i guess this was the last part of the jigsaw puzzle for them jbs's announcement it was moving into fish farming for the first time sparked vehement opposition from locals including businessman jared castles because we were saying well okay they're growing out here but they've got to get the food out we just knew them as the brazilian butchers and i was shocked to hear that they were interested in buying hue and i couldn't work it out but what was more shocking for the local community here was the fact that they had a record in brazil and the us that pointed to corruption and we found it shocking that they would be allowed to expand their business in this tiny little island called tasmania [Music] the takeover bid was the first major test for jbs australia since the corruption scandal the company needed to win approval from the federal treasurer and his advisers at the foreign investment review board their role is to assess corporate character and australia's national interest but the process is notoriously opaque from the outset jbs appeared confident the foreign investment review board have always done a very very good job in australia we've had a very good relationship with them in the past we think we are a very good strong corporate citizen in australia our track record in australia is beyond reproach environmentalists disagreed they're brazilian butchers plundering the planet's resources and they're coming after our chief marine real estate people are shocked and people are very nervous about how the tasmanian government is going to stand up for our marine waters to a company which has got a terrible track record with environment and corporate law in the corporate world billionaire and hue and shareholder andrew forrest tried to block the sale and launched a national media campaign against jbs i say to jps will you commit to removing the environmental negatives which currently exists with salmon farming in short but jbs's opponents were up against a company that's long enjoyed close political ties it's great to be here at jbs australia this is a very important business there's a lot of issues we're facing we talk to government all the time we're very reliant on government to address the key issues that affect our industry jbs has been schmoozing australian politicians for years [Music] i know that jbs has a really proud record not just in this state but in australia in canberra the company also has its powerful lobbyist former nationals director scott mitchell i think they're very well connected politically and when you see them floating around the halls of canberra you really wonder how much power they've got they're not spending they've got their lobbyists in there you know all the time for nothing while jbs worked its political connections its expansion bid one support from within the federal coalition and tasmania's government i'm hopeful based on their previous experience with ferb that we will see them as a business entity on this island but you're supportive of them getting that foreign investment review board tick yes i am it would be hard to argue that on the basis that jbs have a strong footprint in both the state and across the country that it's not in the national interest for them to purchase or be allowed to purchase um the shares in this particular company jbs is a company under investigation under serious questions in many countries except australia where they seem to be encouraged and supported and where no powerful person seems willing to say anything against them and you have to ask what is going on why is this happening why is a company with a history of industrial levels of corruption why is that company so supported by our politicians one of the politicians approached by jbs was federal agriculture minister david littleproud the minister told four corners he had a brief phone call with the ceo of jbs about the plans and told him it was a matter for the foreign investment review board david little proud was also asked about jbs's beard on abc radio do you worry about the food system in australia if a company of that kind dominates australian food so much and then ultimately fails well that's obviously what we'll be taking into account by the a triple c and the treasury and the third board obviously uh we we are also going to understand that this company also employs a lot of australians so um obviously we've got to get the balance right the decision was made by treasurer josh freidenberg late last year to approve jbs's takeover of salmon producer human aquaculture community activists were outraged it's not hard to find out about jbs's history how do you view the foreign investment review board or ferb's decision to approve them it was a political decision um to allow jbs to buy human aquaculture it was always going to be a political decision and everybody i spoke to about saw it as a chronicle of a death foretold there were no no one was surprised the treasurer did not answer for corners questions about the decision it showed that the ferb effectively is not doing its job if given the history of jbs with environmental deforestation in the amazon with corporate damage in the united states uh with bribing politicians uh if a company like that was considered to be a suitable to set up shop in australia it shows how bad the ferb has got to [Music] jbs declined four corners interview request and said it's a proud australian corporate citizen with a strong brand and reputation jbs today is still very much a family business while the batista brothers are no longer on the board they remain the company's largest shareholders by far jvs's australian operations are now overseen by wesley batista's son wesley jr when you have companies that the whole business model is based on dishonesty in corruption it's a much more challenging task to actually transform it in an honest ethical company and this case will need years and also needs a lot of pressure from authorities from consumers from investors to really make sure that this type of company that goes through systemic corruption really transform its practices these seas don't belong to jbs they're our seas they belong to the australian people and to all the creatures that live in it and it's not theirs to destroy just for the sake of their greed be wary in australia i would not trust them with a fragile environment anywhere they have demonstrated their willingness for corruption pollution you know and uh just illegal activity that puts a the public at risk at so many levels [Music] [Applause] [Music] you

Channel: ABC News In-depth

Views: 997,699

Keywords: JBS, meat, brazil, corruption, corrupt, beef, pork, chicken, salmon, biggest meat company in the world, ethical, Australia, supermarkets, investigation, Joesley Batista, Wesley Batista, abbotoir, meat processing, Huon, Rivalea, Grace Tobin, Four Corners, ABC News, documentary, food, Coles, Woolworths, Primo, ham, eating, Amazon, Rainforest, crimes, allegations, insider trading, UK, US, eat, burger, investigative journalism, investigative documentary, 4 corners, JBS investigated, The Butchers from Brazil

Id: NYfIXLkoB68

Length: 45min 52sec (2752 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 25 2022