Meat-loving Uruguay has been rocked by a "phantom cows" investment swindle, with high-profile politicians, celebrities and even priests among the victims.
Thousands of people in the small South American nation invested an estimated $350 million (£259 million) in fraudulent "cow bonds". But despite Uruguay's "model" cattle-tracking system, neither the cows (which could number more than 700,000) nor the money can be found, said Reuters.
Three companies – that have now gone bust – are under investigation in what is shaping up to be one of the biggest financial scandals in the history of this "stable, farming nation". Uruguay's national cattle registry has declined to comment, but the revelation has "sent shockwaves through its bigger ranching neighbours, Argentina and Brazil", where there are similar livestock investment schemes.
For years investors in one firm, Conexión Ganadera, received fixed-dollar returns as promised. But when some went in search of their cows, they couldn't match the cattle registry tracking numbers to the tags in the ears of the animals in the fields. Uruguay's central bank began probing cattle investments in 2018, but it was the broadcast of a "scathing" TV documentary last October – that included statements from investors claiming to have been defrauded – that brought the corruption to the fore, said Bloomberg.
An inventory of Conexión Ganadera by a bankruptcy trustee estimated that as few as 70,000 of the 804,604 cattle the company claimed to manage had ever actually existed. "We don't know if the cows were ever bought, whether they're alive or dead," one investor told Reuters. | 
