Corrupt billionaire brothers’ meat plants are riddled with coronavirus

The world’s largest meat-processing giant was forced to shut down some of its US plants as more than 100 of its workers tested positive for COVID-19 last week, but the pandemic may be the least of its problems. The Brazilian billionaire brothers — one of whom owned a Manhattan penthouse — controlling the massive meat producer JBS, which slaughters 13 million animals a day and has revenues of $50 billion a year, have been linked to high-level government corruption that has rocked the South American country. The Batistas’ company is also being probed in America now for bribery, and has been accused of price-gouging during the COVID-19 crisis. The New York Attorney General, meanwhile, has been asked to look at the company as “an imminent threat” before it goes public on Wall Street. Joesley Batista, 48, who along with his 47-year-old brother Wesley spent six months in jail in Brazil charged with insider trading, sold a sprawling 7,000 square foot apartment in midtown’s Baccarat Hotel in 2018. The posh pad across the street from the Museum of Modern Art was valued at more than $11 million  — funds that were earmarked toward paying off the brothers’ fines and legal costs, according to Brazilian press reports. After admitting to bribing nearly 2,000 elected officials in Brazil in order to secure government funding to fuel their company’s US expansion a few years ago, Joesley and Wesley Batista were slapped with more than $3.2 billion in fines in 2017, the highest in the country’s history. Now JBS’s parent company, J&F Investimentos, is reportedly the subject of US Justice Department and Securities and Exchange Commission investigations for alleged bribery here. Last year, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez urged the federal government to investigate the beef conglomerate and its alleged dealings with the Venezuelan government after the company developed business ties with the administration of President Nicolas Maduro. The US has levied sanctions against the Venezuelan leader...MORE