Land grabbing is now considered a crime against humanity, but few land grabbers end up in jail. Instead, if you search the specialised website farmlandgrab.org for news about law suits, court proceedings, convictions or imprisonment related to land deals, what you will largely find are reports of local communities being accused of wrongdoing for defending their own territories against powerful companies! Yet the links between crime, corruption and those engaging in agricultural land deals are real.
In 2013, in the annex to a report on a land grab in northern Senegal involving Italian investors suspected of money laundering, GRAIN produced a summary of other cases around the world where large farmland deals were being signed to potentially move illicit funds.
GRAIN recently learned that several of those cases have been prosecuted in the courts, or been acted upon by national authorities, and so we have compiled a short update on these developments. The good news is that in some cases the crimes are being stopped. The bad news is that this further confirms the overall trend of corrupt businesspeople and politicians using farmland deals to enrich themselves illegally, and the situation is little different for other land sectors like timber. Since we compiled our list in 2013, numerous other cases have come to light, of which we highlight some of the more well-documented cases below.
Bárcenas: now in prison
In 2013, we reported that the former treasurer of the ruling People’s Party in Spain, Luís Bárcenas, was suspected of laundering money through a 3,000 hectare (ha) lemon plantation in northern Argentina, owned by a company called La Moraleja S.A.
In 2018, the courts concluded that Bárcenas had indeed manufactured illegal contracts and false invoices for the party resulting in money being skimmed off of its accounts and sent to Switzerland. From there, funds were wired to Argentina into the Moraleja farm, under the management of Ángel Sanchís and his son- both associates of Bárcenas. The millions made from the farm were channelled back into personal accounts in Spain, at times in the form of “disguised transfers” that were based on fabricated service contracts between Bárcenas and Ángel Sanchís.
The courts verified that these transactions took place and Sanchís and his son were found guilty of laundering €3 million through this setup and sent to prison for one year each. Bárcenas was also convicted and sentenced to 33 years in prison. As a result of these findings, Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy was subject to a motion of censure on 1 June 2018 and removed from power.
In the meantime, while the Spanish courts were doing their investigations, Greenpeace Argentina found that the Moraleja farmland – once a protected area- had been acquired and cleared of its forest in contravention of Argentina’s forestry laws. Of the total area, 3,000 hectares of high value wood species were razed and lemon trees were planted in their place; a violation of Argentina’s Law for the Protection of Native Forests. The annual lemon harvest went partly to The Coca-Cola Company to make Sprite, and the rest was exported to Europe. Another 15,000 hectares was used to produced genetically modified soy. The farm owners contend that they were given waivers by local authorities to convert the woodlands – which would make the authorities complicit in the infraction. The provincial government had, indeed, given its support by declaring the company’s plantation project to be of “provincial interest”. For now, the farm has lost its “sustainable agriculture” certification and contract with Coca-Cola but the owners say they will reforest the 3,000 ha and convert 7,000 ha of the soy farm to lemon production. Maybe this will begin when they are released from jail?
— source grain.org | 17 Oct 2018