In short
Episode topic: The Batista brothers (Wesley and Joesley Batista) and how they built JBS, the world’s biggest meat producer, amid rapid expansion, state-backed financing, and major corruption and labor/animal-welfare controversies.
Guest backgrounds
No guests. Hosts are Zing Singh (journalist/author/podcaster) and Simon Jack (BBC business editor).
Key claims
Their rise was enabled by Brazil’s beef boom and development-bank loans (BNDES), including acquisitions like Swift/Swift & Co and later US expansion. They became formal suspects in Operation Car Wash, allegedly bribing ~1,900 politicians and paying a record $3.2B fine. A plea-cooperation twist involved a lawyer sending the wrong audio attachment. They allegedly also sold $90M of stock before “Joesley Day” and later faced insider-trading allegations.
Notable examples
JBS slaughter scale (13M+ animals/day), Swift Armor (Argentina), Pilgrim’s Pride (chicken), Temer wire tape, $3.2B fine, child-labor allegations (US abattoirs), slavery-linked cattle sourcing (Brazil), and animal-abuse investigations.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Chapters
Tap a time to open that second in VOThe Origins of the Batista Empire
0:00 to 1:00
Explore the early beginnings of the Batista family's meat business.
“This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK.”
The Origins of the Batista Empire
2:26 to 3:04
Explore the early beginnings of the Batista family's meat business.
“This is the story of two Brazilian brothers, Wesley and Joesley Batista.”
Brazil's Beef Industry Growth
3:04 to 4:52
Learn about Brazil's rise as a beef powerhouse and the Batista's role.
“And this is a meaty story in many ways because this isn't just a story about Brazil's economic growth.”
Expansion and Acquisitions
4:52 to 7:30
Understand the Batista brothers' aggressive expansion strategy.
“Now, as a country, Brazil was primed for the beef industry because of its vast grazing lands.”
Entering the US Market
7:30 to 10:40
Discover how the Batistas broke into the US meat market.
“Wesley has said it's in our DNA to grow.”
The Global Meat Empire
10:40 to 14:00
Examine the Batista brothers' rise to become the largest beef producer.
“And Brazil, about 10 years ago, was named as one of the BRICS countries.”
The Impact of Size on Beef Pricing
14:00 to 17:06
Learn how large meat companies influence pricing and market dynamics.
“who claimed the takeover would result in lower prices paid to cattle suppliers and higher beef prices for consumers.”
The Batista Brothers' Rise in the Meat Industry
17:06 to 18:58
Discover how the Batista brothers expanded their meat empire and its scale.
“But before we can get there, we need to look a little bit more closely about how they built this fortune.”
Operation Car Wash and Corruption Allegations
18:58 to 22:26
Explore the Brazilian corruption scandal that implicated the Batista brothers.
“In videos of his testimony, Joesley said that the company's extreme growth could not have happened without these bribes, claiming it wouldn't have worked.”
The Fallout from the Scandal
22:26 to 25:56
Examine the consequences of the corruption revelations for JBS and the brothers.
“prosecutors and they discuss ways they might be able to influence Brazil's chief prosecutor on the terms of the plea deal.”
Show all 15 chapters
Resurgence of the Batista Brothers
25:56 to 28:00
Understand how the brothers navigated legal troubles to regain their status.
“Well, what impact did this scandal ultimately have on JBS?”
The Batista Brothers' Return to JBS
28:00 to 30:02
Learn how the Batista brothers overcame challenges and returned to JBS during the pandemic.
“For a few years, the brothers were banned from holding management positions at the holding company of JBS.”
JBS's Path to the Stock Exchange
30:02 to 31:39
Discover the intricate journey JBS took to get listed on the NYSE amidst controversies.
“If you like, this is the mecca of capitalism.”
Scoring the Batista Brothers
31:44 to 36:36
The hosts rate the Batista brothers across various categories based on their impact and controversies.
“The brothers are the largest shareholders of JBS through their holding company.”
Legacy and Impact of the Batistas
36:36 to 40:06
Discussion on the lasting legacy and ethical implications of the Batista brothers' business practices.
“Well, one of the tests we often do for power is that can you bring up the White House and talk to the president?”
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:00Zing Tsjeng:This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK.
0:05Simon Jack:Pop quiz. What's in your kid's lunchbox? At Whole Foods Market, they've already done the studying. Over 300 food ingredients are banned from their shelves. No hydronated fats in the peanut butter and no high fructose corn syrup in the cookies. And for sandwiches, there are no synthetic nitrates or nitrites in any of their deli meat. So you can pack lunchboxes with peace of mind. Get back to school ready at Whole Foods Market.
0:32Zing Tsjeng:Investing with Schwab is like spending a Saturday at a great farmer's market. You can fill your reusable tote with a bit of everything. Maybe you go for some free-range self-directed investing. Or perhaps you pick up a few farm-fresh trades while you peruse. You can even get help from a dedicated advisor. That's full-service wealth management. Mix, match, and change your mind whenever you want. Because at Schwab, you can invest your way. No matter your goals or appetite for investing, Schwab has everything you need all in one place. Visit schwab.com to learn more.
1:09Simon Jack:It's 2017 and a lawyer sits in front of his computer. Let's imagine a large wood-panelled room befitting the legal counsel to two of the richest and most powerful men in Brazil.
1:21Zing Tsjeng:He finishes typing and hits send. He heads to the door, but something is nagging at the back of his mind. He returns to his computer and opens his email sent folder.
1:31Simon Jack:The blood drains from his face. With horror, he realises he attached the wrong audio file to his email, an email that was going directly to Brazil's federal prosecutor's office.
1:43Zing Tsjeng:The attachment was supposed to save his clients. Instead, his mistake will send them to jail.
1:50Simon Jack:Welcome to Good Bad Billionaire from the BBC World Service. Each episode we pick a billionaire and we find out how they made their money.
1:57Zing Tsjeng:We take them from zero to their first million and then from a million on to a billion.
2:01Simon Jack:My name is Zing Singh and I'm a journalist, author and podcaster.
2:04Zing Tsjeng:And I'm Simon Jack. I'm the BBC's business editor.
2:06Simon Jack:I have to say I've never sent the wrong email in quite the same way this lawyer did.
2:11Zing Tsjeng:I think I've replied to a group when I'm meant to reply to one person. and have perhaps been unflattering about someone else on the group, but I've never a disastrous one like this.
2:22Simon Jack:And not one that sent your clients to jail.
2:24Zing Tsjeng:No, not yet anyway. This is the story of two Brazilian brothers, Wesley and Joesley Batista. They're 54 and 53 respectively, and each of them is worth$5.7 billion.
2:38Simon Jack:They own a company called JBS, the biggest meat producer in the world. If you're vegan or vegetarian, maybe turn off now.
2:45Zing Tsjeng:Yes, this episode will involve the referencing of killing of a lot of animals because JBS slaughters over 13 million animals a day. That is per year, 5 billion chickens, 53 million pigs, 27 million cows and 8 million lambs. If you eat meat, you probably eat products made by JBS.
3:06Simon Jack:And this is a meaty story in many ways because this isn't just a story about Brazil's economic growth. the company controlled by the Batista brothers had to pay a$3.2 billion fine and spent time in jail in one of the biggest corruption scandals in history.
3:23Zing Tsjeng:But today they are worth more money than ever. Their shares trade on the New York Stock Exchange. They can even be found at meetings in the White House. Probably worthy of a movie. So let us set the opening scenes.
3:38Simon Jack:The Batista brothers' story begins with their father, José Batista Sobrino. In 1953, he opened a small butcher's in the Brazilian city of Annapolis. It had the capacity to slaughter a measly five animals a day. Now, Brazil in the 1950s was in a period of rapid modernization and industrial growth. And a new capital city, Brasilia, was constructed between 1956 to 1960 under the slogan 50 years progress in five. Jose was attracted by the tax incentives in that city. You get four years tax free for setting up there. So he moved there and he gave his company a big boost.
4:14Zing Tsjeng:And he supplied meat to the cafeterias at the construction sites, building this new capital. In 1968, he expanded his business with the purchase of his first cattle processing unit, an abattoir, a slaughterhouse in other words, in the Brazilian state of Goias. Within two years, it had quadrupled its slaughter rate from 30 cattle per day to 120. And he named his company Freeboy in 1972. That is a combination of refrigerator and bull, which is exactly what they were selling. And that year, 1972, Wesley and Joesley were both born. Only 10 months between them, they had four siblings, one older brother and three sisters.
4:53Simon Jack:Now, as a country, Brazil was primed for the beef industry because of its vast grazing lands. And industrialisation meant that Brazilians were consuming so much more of it. And at this point, Brazil had the world's fourth largest supply of cattle. 105 million cows mooing all over the country. Only India, the Soviet Union and the US had more than that.
5:15Zing Tsjeng:Yeah, but sheer numbers mean little in the beef industry. What's more important is the rate of slaughter. And that in 1972 was Brazil's biggest obstacle because its slaughter rate, it's a horrible measure, isn't it, from the country? The slaughter rate was only 12 % of the herd each year, compared with 24 % in Argentina and 40 % in the United States. Why is that? Well, poor quality pastures meant cows had less nutrition, so they had to wait longer until they were fattened up. They had to wait until they were five years old to slaughter, compared with just 30 months in Argentina or 16 months in the United States.
5:50Simon Jack:You'd think the beef industry would come up with a more PR-friendly way of saying slaughter rate by now.
5:55Zing Tsjeng:Yeah, I think process or something is probably the word they would like to use. Processing speed.
5:58Simon Jack:So the Brazilian government focused all their attention on turning beef into a profitable export industry. They moved cattle raising from the south, where it was cold in winter, to the Mato Grosso area of Brazil. This land was inexpensive, so breeding thousands of cattle was easier. And it was also conveniently located next to the state of Goiás, where the Batista business was located. The government was financing the modernization of packing plants and Brazilian labor costs were low. So meat packers were quickly able to compete with the US, especially when it came to products like tinned corned beef, hamburgers and pet food markets.
6:34Zing Tsjeng:And this story reminds me of other ones we've seen where a business or a person finds themselves at a crossroads of what's going on in the country. And they're kind of in the right place at the right time because this was the beginning of the Brazilian beef boom. And the Batista family did very well during the 1970s. Wesley and Joe Esley learned the business alongside their father. although Wesley says his father was the only true hands-on butcher in the family. That's nice. As teenagers the boys bought and sold oxen. They negotiated with clients. They learned the inner workings of the industry and Wesley said their background was not academic.
7:09Zing Tsjeng:He said we have the background of life. We have learned by living. By 17 both had dropped out of high school to manage the various slaughterhouses the family owned.
7:18Simon Jack:Through the 80s and 90s their oldest brother Jose Junior led Freeboy. Jose Sr is still alive, but he took a step back from the business. And during this time, it seems Wesley and Joesley oversaw this expansion. Wesley has said it's in our DNA to grow. According to their biographer, Rakiel Lundin, Wesley is a smart manager with a close eye for detail. Joesley is the more flamboyant one of the brothers and is a risk taker. She described him as very intelligent. He has no scruples. We'll come to that later.
7:49Zing Tsjeng:Yeah, we will. And this is not a family keen on bureaucracy. They like action. They encourage efficiency, agility and decisiveness. And the brothers started expanding aggressively. Between 1993 and 2005, Freeboy acquired 12 other slaughterhouses and beef processing plants.
8:05Simon Jack:Now, it's worth taking a moment here to understand the reasons why this expansion was possible. And one key fact was the growth of supermarket chains. These squeezed traditional local butchers out of business. and the local butchers had been the main clients of smaller local slaughterhouses. Also, supermarkets want a lot of meat and they had more stringent sanitation and quality controls. These cost money and therefore easier for a large slaughterhouse to take on. And local slaughterhouses started to get into financial trouble. And then conveniently, in would suit the Batista brothers offering to buy their business.
8:40Zing Tsjeng:And around the world, more people were eating more meat over this period. There was growing urbanisation, higher incomes, better access to refrigeration, for example, so as well as processed beef. They began exporting fresh beef, primarily cuts not widely used in Brazil. In 2004, they relocated Free Boys headquarters to Sao Paulo, centralising all their operations. And in 2005, the eldest brother, Jose, after 20 years in charge, decided to explore a career in politics, which actually ultimately failed. But meanwhile, Wesley and Joe Esley, who we're focused on, took over the business.
9:15Simon Jack:It's very hard to find any records of their personal wealth at this point. We do know that in 2005, Freeboy had estimated revenues of just under$2 billion. But they were also ploughing profits into their expansion. Moody's, which assigns credit ratings to companies, noted the negative free cash flow generation due to the company's growth strategy. So they may have done it earlier, but we think it's safe to say that by 2005, at the age of 33, now running Freeboy, Wesley and Joesley are millionaires.
9:45Zing Tsjeng:I think very safe to say that, because although the negative free cash flow, that means that any profit they make, they're ploughing back into the business. But of course, that has the effect of making the business worth more over time. So yeah, definitely by age 33, they are millionaires.
10:11Zing Tsjeng:Now, their first move was to expand their production outside of Brazil, and there was one key factor which would make that possible. There's something called the Brazilian Development Bank. It's also known as Bendes. It's like a national bank. It was founded in 1952, and it helps fund private companies to expand industry and infrastructure in the country. Lots of countries have these kind of development banks, But Bindes had just begun its national champion scheme, choosing several Brazilian companies, investing in them heavily to become national champions, turning them into successful multinational corporations.
10:46Zing Tsjeng:And Brazil, about 10 years ago, was named as one of the BRICS countries. That's Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. These are the fast growing, rapidly industrializing countries which have come to take up much more of the world economy than previously. So Brazil's in the economic fast lane at the moment.
11:04Simon Jack:Well, the brothers were living life in the fast lane. They bought Swift Armor, Argentina's largest beef producer and exporter, for 200 million. Benders gave them an$80 million loan to help pay for that. They continued expanding in the region. And by 2006, they were operating 21 beef plants in Brazil and five in Argentina, slaughtering around 20 ,000 cattle per day. Sorry, vegetarians. But they wanted more. So they set their sights on the United States. However, they couldn't export to the US because the US's restrictive safety rules didn't accept meat from Brazil.
11:36Zing Tsjeng:Very interesting, that thing about the US not allowing beef into their market. Whenever you look at international trade, one of the key stumbling blocks at anything is whether you accept foreign food into your market. That's part of it's to do with sanitary requirements and health rules. The other is to protect your own farmers because that's seen as very politically valuable. You know, if you look in the US at the moment, you know, the farming lobby, the rural communities often have a very powerful voice. So that's be part of it.
12:07Simon Jack:So they needed to buy their way into that market and to help finance this next expansion. They held an IPO, the very first beef processing company to do so in Brazil. And in March 2007, they took JBS public evaluation equivalent to$800 million. At the time, this was the most successful debut in the history of its stock market. And to mark the occasion, Freeboy was renamed JBS after their father Jose's initials.
12:34Zing Tsjeng:So just a few months later, the Batista brothers made their biggest acquisitions, which finally gave them access to that US meat market. They bought a company called Swift & Co, which was the third largest beef and pork processor in the US. It's also a large beef processor in Australia. It's got annual sales of$9 billion. that buying it cost them 1.4 billion and a substantial portion of the financing for all of that came from Bindes, which bought around 500 million dollars worth of new JBS shares. Keep your eye also on that development bank because I think that these are big loans that the Bindes is extending to them.
Read the full transcript
13:11Zing Tsjeng:And one would say outsize for a company of their size at that time.
13:15Simon Jack:If red flags and alarm bells aren't swinging around your head at the minute, they should be.
13:19Zing Tsjeng:Yeah.
13:20Simon Jack:Swift was expensive, but it got them a global brand name with sales and markets that were mostly new to the company. Places like Hong Kong, Japan, Mexico, South Korea, China and Taiwan. And at the time, Joe Wesley announced to market analysts, with this acquisition, we become the largest beef company in the world.
13:38Zing Tsjeng:But they weren't nearly done yet. Over the next decade, JBS acquired more than 40 rivals on four continents. And when the US dollar was weaker, the brothers bought more American companies, including Smithfield Foods for half a billion dollars. And they're about to spend half a billion again to acquire a US company called National Beef. But the deal fell through after antitrust challenges, that's competition concerns, from the US Justice Department who claimed the takeover would result in lower prices paid to cattle suppliers and higher beef prices for consumers. This means that when a company gets too big, they start calling the shots on the terms, which means that the suppliers of the beef get squeezed because you can't argue with this big colossus and it means that they can also have control of the pricing of the end product.
14:26Zing Tsjeng:Competition authorities around the world keep an eye on this kind of stuff. We've seen it in every company. It goes from meat all the way to the biggest technology companies in the world.
14:33Simon Jack:I also love the fact that when the US dollar was weaker they went on a shopping spree. Very relatable except for most of us we're just flying to New York and buying some new handbags or something. They're buying billion dollar meat companies. You say most of us. I'll listen to you. Well, I still remember the good old days when the American dollar was three to a pound.
14:53Zing Tsjeng:Yeah. Gosh. Are you old enough to remember that?
14:55Simon Jack:Am I old enough? Yeah, I do, actually, because my parents wanted to go to New York, but we couldn't. Well, never mind. OK. Well, the head of an association of independent ranchers said this is a David versus Goliath type of victory. Wesley, who's Goliath in this case, by the way, said that the deal falling through would allow JBS to, in his words, be in an enhanced liquidity position for future growth opportunities, i.e. they could just spend that money elsewhere.
15:21Zing Tsjeng:We've got plenty of money. We'll go and find something else to spend on exactly.
15:24Simon Jack:Exactly. Thank you very much. And instead, they diversified into chicken. They bought a majority stake in US company Pilgrim's Pride after it went bankrupt for$800 million. and by 2011 the brothers were responsible for 22 % of the US beef supply.
15:40Zing Tsjeng:Wow, if you think how many burgers they sell in the US, that's a lot of beef. By the way, are you watching the series Beef yet?
15:47Simon Jack:No, not yet.
15:48Zing Tsjeng:It becomes completely unrelated, it's a very good thing. Anyway, at this point they're throwing some serious money around. They're selling a lot of meat but not enough to fund what was a$20 billion acquisition spree. How did they pay for it all? Well, they got nearly 5 billion of it from the development bank Bindes. By 2014, the Brazilian state was the major individual shareholder of the company with nearly 35 % of the total shares. So, as I was saying earlier, that seems to be a very oversized share for a national development bank to hold a successful private company. With the size and scale they are, you would think that they could go to commercial banks rather than use, in a sense, you know, a kind of development bank to get people on their feet.
16:33Zing Tsjeng:So that does look very unusual.
16:35Simon Jack:The bank which was supposed to create national champions of business has clearly created national champions.
16:39Zing Tsjeng:It's already job done, I would say.
16:40Simon Jack:Exactly.
16:41Zing Tsjeng:Let's check in on how rich they are at this point, because this is why they're on the list. From 2012, Forbes had included the Batista family in their billionaire list, but the family included up to 10 members. So there were no individual billionaires. In 2016, Forbes listed the six children and their father individually. Each was worth around 890 million US dollars.
17:02Simon Jack:So at this point, Wesley and Jo Wesley are very close to that billionaire status. But before we can get there, we need to look a little bit more closely about how they built this fortune. So far, we've been telling you the story that the Batista brothers told the world. But in 2017, we found out that wasn't quite the whole truth. And for that, we need to talk about a little something called Operation Car Wash.
17:26Zing Tsjeng:Yes, this is where the sizzle underneath that beef comes in. Operation Car Wash was a massive Brazilian anti-corruption investigation. It began in 2014 with the investigation of a small car wash over money laundering. If you've seen Breaking Bad, you'll know how effective car washes can be at laundering money. But it went on to uncover a vast corruption scheme right at the heart of the Brazilian government with lots of tentacles. It found large companies been paying bribes to politicians in exchange for contracts and political favours. A kind of a story as old as the hills.
17:59Simon Jack:By 2016, the investigation had moved far beyond its original focus and the Batista brothers became formal suspects. This could be very bad for them. They were still just in their mid-40s at that point, and the CEO of another company got a 19-year present sentence. So in 2017, the brothers approached Brazil's prosecutor general, offering to trade all the evidence they'd collected in exchange for immunity.
18:23Zing Tsjeng:Yeah, and the brothers revealed information about how they themselves had bribed high-ranking officials in exchange for favours and contracts, things like resolving tax matters easily, freeing up loans. They even claimed they had bribed three Brazilian presidents, all of whom, by the way, denied this. In total, the brothers said they'd spent around$200 million in bribes than only 1 ,900 politicians.
18:47Simon Jack:Wow, that is a lot of people to send bribes to. Now, the brothers alleged that some bribes would go to offshore accounts, and most of the money was funded into political campaigns. JBS and other companies under the Umbrella Holding Company were the biggest campaign contributors in the 2014 Brazilian elections. In videos of his testimony, Joesley said that the company's extreme growth could not have happened without these bribes, claiming it wouldn't have worked. It wouldn't have been so fast.
19:13Zing Tsjeng:We had to do it.
19:14Simon Jack:We simply had to pay 1 ,900 politicians.
19:18Zing Tsjeng:Joesley also recounted how a decade-long scheme between JBS and Brazil's national bank, Bindes, came about. It started in a 2005 meeting at the bank's headquarters with Guido Mantega, who served as the president of Bendes for two years before taking over to Brazil's finance minister between 2006 and 2014. And Joesley alleged that with Guido's blessing, JBS started looking for opportunities abroad.
19:44Simon Jack:For that first international purchase, Swift Armour in Argentina, remember them, Bendes lent the company$80 million. Joe Wesley alleged that the Batistas paid 4 % of that value, 3.2 million, as a bribe to an associate of Guido. The brothers then claimed to have continued paying kickbacks to that associate until 2009, when they alleged they started negotiating directly with Guido himself.
20:09Zing Tsjeng:Yeah, and in the days after the public found out about JBS's corruption scandal, Joe Wesley started speaking publicly. He told a journalist, it was the rule of the game. And what's most important, corruption was on the upper floor with the authorities. And he sent an open letter apologising for participating in this scheme. But he's also placed some blame on Brazil's corrupt system, saying in other countries outside Brazil, we were able to expand our business without violating ethical values.
20:35Simon Jack:So much for being the national champion of business. Well, Bendis has denied allegations of corruption and bribery, citing an independent investigation at the time that found no evidence. and Guido, well, he was arrested but almost immediately released due to his wife's illness. He faced further legal action but he has denied all allegations and didn't end up with a major conviction. But he wasn't the last politician to be implicated by the brothers.
21:00Zing Tsjeng:Nope. As part of their testimony, the brothers claim to have bribed the sitting Brazilian president, Michel Temer, with bribes worth a total of$4.6 million. Joesley even wore a wire to secretly record their conversation. In the tape, the president can be heard discussing Joe Esley giving a bribe to another politician on Tamer's behalf. So what happened to that president? He denied wrongdoing and refused to resign. There were two failed attempts to impeach him. When he left office in 2019, he was arrested as part of Operation Car Wash, but then was quickly released. He's continued to deny all allegations.
21:35Simon Jack:Back to the Batista brothers. The plea deal offered them immunity from prosecution on corruption charges. Additionally, to settle the bribery charges, the company controlled by the Batista brothers had to pay a record-breaking$3.2 billion fine to the Brazilian authorities, although this was over 25 years. But there's not one but two unbelievable twists to the story. First, and this is unbelievable, Joesley's lawyer attached the wrong audio recording to his email to the prosecutor's office. We've recounted that at the start of the episode. Instead of the wire recording of President Temer, the audio the lawyer sent was a conversation between Joesley and Ricardo Sald, an executive of JBS's holding company.
22:18Zing Tsjeng:So they're trying to dump Temer in it. In the process, the lawyer dumps them right in the soup because in the four-hour tape, Joesley seems to admit that he hid key information from the prosecutors and they discuss ways they might be able to influence Brazil's chief prosecutor on the terms of the plea deal. Joesley and Ricardo sound relaxed. They're laughing. Joesley is heard saying, we're the jewel in their crown. We're going to come out of this as everyone's friends and we're not going to be arrested. Within days of the email being sent, Joesley and Ricardo turned themselves in to the police.
22:51Zing Tsjeng:Their lawyers denied any breach of the plea agreement, insisting that both men had fully complied with their cooperation obligations. I would say bad day at the office for those lawyers.
23:00Simon Jack:I mean, if you were the lawyer, you'd sort of dread waking up, finding yourself in the back of a van with a bunch of pigs about to be sent to the slaughter. It's the kind of mistake that costs you your career, if not your life.
23:12Zing Tsjeng:It would make, as we were saying, would make a great movie, wouldn't it? And, you know, the short-lived screen presence of this lawyer would be quite a nice little cameo, watching their face when they realise what they'd done. I don't think history relates what actually happened to this lawyer. So, well, you know, if anyone knows.
23:28Simon Jack:Yeah, we can only hope they're alive and well wherever they are. For the second twist, let's rewind a few days to the day that Joesley's secret recording with President Tamer, the one that the lawyer was meant to attach to that email, went public. And this was when the news broke about the corruption within Brazil's meat industry. That day, 17th May 2017, became known in the Brazilian financial market as Joesley Day. The day after Joesley Day, JBS's stock plummeted. the fall was so dramatic that share trading on the Brazilian stock market was briefly suspended. With the meat industry so important to the country, the Brazilian stock market plunged nearly 9%, the worst collapse in nine years.
24:10Zing Tsjeng:Ouch. Quick note on share trading being suspended. They have circuit breakers sometimes. So if something starts falling really, really fast, usually around 9 % or 10%, they will suspend trading in it. So the market can regroup and you have an orderly market so people can just take a breath and it's really important in current market conditions because often you have basically algorithms trading shares and they are primed usually to follow the momentum so once stock starts falling really quickly the algorithms notice it and they start selling too and you get this combined effect and basically it can enter total chaos in market conditions so you have these circuit breakers where basically if it goes down a certain level, it'll cut it off.
24:52Zing Tsjeng:You'll close share trading so everyone can just gather themselves. The algorithms can take a break and the traders can take a break and everyone goes, OK, rather than panic, let's try and figure out what this is worth and what the situation really warrants. That's how share trading is suspenseful.
25:06Simon Jack:Right. So it's basically just stop a massive panic attack and massive stare from taking
25:09Zing Tsjeng:over. Yeah, exactly. But remember, the brothers knew this bad news was coming. They knew they were about to share the Temer tape. So it's alleged that in the weeks before, the brothers got ahead of this and sold$90 million worth of JBS stock, thereby avoiding, of course, the 30 % fall in the company share price. Now that would be considered insider trading. So Wesley was also arrested just three days after his younger brother.
25:36Simon Jack:Although the brothers always maintained that the transactions were legitimate business operations rather than insider trading. Add
25:43Zing Tsjeng:together the alleged insider trading, the accidental tape which seemed to show obstruction of justice, and the brothers spent about six months in jail in a Sao Paulo detention centre before being released into house arrest. Like many others charged under Operation Car Wash, the case remained unresolved for years.
26:00Simon Jack:Well, what impact did this scandal ultimately have on JBS? On Joe Wesley's release from prison, JBS shares jumped 3.6 % and there was a boom in the beef industry due to a huge surge in demand from China. Their Brazilian profits soared nearly 116 % in the first quarter of 2019. And that year, Wesley and Joe Wesley both made their debut on Forbes' billionaire list worth$1.3 billion each.
26:29Zing Tsjeng:So a bit of time inside didn't seem to harm their business prospects.
26:33Simon Jack:Definitely didn't dent their fortunes.
27:13Simon Jack:We'll see you next time. at Whole Foods Market.
27:16Zing Tsjeng:Odoo, providing tools for businesses across industries into one fully integrated platform. Whatever your business needs, Odoo is committed to providing it. Learn more at odoo.com. Choiceology, an original podcast from Charles Schwab, is a show about the psychology and economics behind our decisions. Join host Katie Milkman, an award-winning behavioral scientist and author of the best-selling book, How to Change, as she shares true stories from Nobel laureates, authors, athletes and everyday people about why we make the choices we do and how to make better ones to help avoid costly mistakes. Listen to choiceology at schwab.com slash podcast or wherever you listen.
28:04Zing Tsjeng:So they're billionaires. Let's go beyond a billion. For a few years, the brothers were banned from holding management positions at the holding company of JBS. But COVID intervened and changed all of that. In 2020, a Brazilian judge lifted the ban. It was seen as essential. The brothers returned during the pandemic, given that JBS supplied 25 % of Brazil's food market and employed 260 ,000 workers by this point. So they're too valuable to leave out of the boardroom. Then in 2023, the Brazilian Securities and Exchange Commission, this is the financial police, acquitted the brothers of charges of insider trading.
28:41Zing Tsjeng:And in 2024, they officially rejoined the board of JBS, still to this day, the world's largest meat company. It's got more than$77 billion in annual revenue, $2 billion in net income, with a presence of nearly every country in the world.
28:57Simon Jack:And it is a good time to be in the meat business. After declining consumption rates in the West due to rising veganism and vegetarianism, meat is now back in a big way. We are now lobbied from all angles about having to eat more protein, although a protein deficit is actually very unusual in a developed country. In 2025, Wesley said that the growing use of GLP-1 weight loss drugs could be driving growing demand for protein because users are advised to eat plenty of it to retain muscle density. Speaking at Rothschild's consumer conference, he said, In the past, the doctor said you should not eat too many eggs, you should not eat too much protein.
29:34Simon Jack:Now it's the other way around.
29:35Zing Tsjeng:So fascinating. They've benefited in the first stage from the desire to eat more meat and more protein in the developing world, particularly in China. So they rode that wave. Now they're riding a different wave, which is that if you are going to eat, make it protein dense as weight loss drugs become more prevalent and diets change.
29:53Simon Jack:Exactly. God, if you're a vegetarian listening to this, you must be hanging your head in your hands right now.
29:58Zing Tsjeng:So the brothers are well and truly back, but of course, they want to get bigger. For a long time, JBS had been prevented from listing on the New York Stock Exchange. If you like, this is the mecca of capitalism. This is where you want your shares listed if you're a big company. They've been refused for a decade by the US Securities and Exchange Commission, the regulators there. And they've been opposed on both sides of the aisle, the political aisle in the US Congress. And there's also a US advocacy group literally named Ban the Batistas.
30:27Simon Jack:But the appetite for the Batista's meat business changed during Trump's second presidency. In 2025, they finally got SEC approval. And this came just two days after it was revealed in a public filing with the Federal Election Commission that the largest donor to the Trump inaugural committee was JBS's subsidiary, Pilgrim's Pride. It was a$5 million donation. That makes it five times larger than the donations from Amazon, Meta, Uber, NVIDIA and Microsoft, which each gave$1 million.
30:58Zing Tsjeng:Wow, that's amazing. So their donation was the same as Amazon, Meta, Uber, NVIDIA and Microsoft combined. JBS denies there's any quid pro quo going on here. A spokesman said no company has control over the timing of when inaugural committee donation contributions are publicised and the JBS listing has been underway for approximately two years. The company has internal controls and compliance procedures in place to ensure that all political contributions are made in a transparent and ethical manner and in full compliance with applicable laws and regulations. Statement ends. A spokesperson for Trump's inaugural committee said the president greatly appreciates his supporters and donors, but he is not bought by anyone.
31:36Zing Tsjeng:Any suggestion otherwise is simply false.
31:38Simon Jack:Well, in June 2025, JBS made their big debut on the New York Stock Exchange. The brothers are the largest shareholders of JBS through their holding company. And when JBS was listed, the net worth of Wesley and Joe Wesley immediately increased by an estimated$200 million each.
32:00Simon Jack:Well, now it's time to score the Batista brothers on our billionaire categories. Wealth, controversy, power, legacy. We rate all our billionaires on this scale from a range of zero to 10. So let's start with wealth.
32:13Zing Tsjeng:Well, currently each worth$5.7 billion, which is a lot of money. It makes them around 750th in our list of billionaires today. coming from a developing country like Brazil. That's obviously a very big number. So I would give them a solid, give them four, actually.
32:31Simon Jack:We don't have that much information about how they like to spend it. And we do like ranking our billionaires higher if they, you know, buy flash cars or private islands, for instance. So, yeah, I would say four out of ten. Spend your money a bit more flagrantly.
32:45Zing Tsjeng:Yeah, I imagine they may well do, but we just don't have the details. Okay, so that's four each on that. Controversy. Well, we've spoken quite a bit about that so far, but we should also talk about some of the controversies related to how the meat is actually made, processed, slaughtered, etc. There's been some child labour accusations in 2025. JBS agreed to pay$4 million after US investigators found that children as young as 13 were working overnight cleaning shifts at the abattoirs in states including Colorado, Minnesota and Nebraska. skirt. So this is in the US, mostly from Central America themselves.
33:21Zing Tsjeng:The children were hired through an outside sanitation company. They worked with chemicals, sometimes showing up to school with burns and washed hazardous tools.
33:29Simon Jack:In a statement, JBS said that it stopped using these staffing agencies to fill sanitation shifts and hoped that the money would provide valuable resources to children in need. But these allegations of labour violations don't end there because in In 2017, an investigation found JBS had bought beef from a farm that was under investigation by Brazilian prosecutors for using workers in conditions described as being like modern day slavery. This actually had repercussions in the United Kingdom because a supermarket chain called Waitrose then pulled JBS supplied corned beef off the shelves following the story.
34:05Zing Tsjeng:Yeah, JBS said it immediately stopped buying beef from the farm in question following the police raids. and their quote does not buy cattle from any farms which have any association with slave labour as listed by the Brazilian government. And I think we have to have a mention also in terms of animal welfare as well.
34:21Simon Jack:Yes, obviously the meat industry has huge issues of animal welfare. In 2017, a JBS investigation by the Humane Society of the United States claimed undercover researchers had seen chickens being punched and beaten with iron rods at a farm in an abattoir contracted to Pilgrim's Pride, which is one of JBS's subsidiaries. And in 2018, another animal rights group, Mercy for Animals, released video footage that said it showed workers at a JBS supplier beating piglets and ripping off their testicles without anaesthesia. I mean, it all makes your stomach churn a little bit.
34:56Zing Tsjeng:Yeah, JBS said in a statement that it suspended shipments from that pig supplier site and had started an investigation and it did not condone or participate in any type of animal abuse. Pilgrim's Pride also launched an investigation suspending supply from at least one of those farms.
35:11Simon Jack:I mean, I feel like this category could go on and on. But I think we probably do also need to talk about the effect of rearing beef on the environment because beef production is the primary driver of deforestation in the world. JBS has been repeatedly accused of buying cattle raised on illegally deforested Amazon land.
35:31Zing Tsjeng:In 2017, it was fined$7.7 million by Brazil's environmental regulator for buying cattle from ranches operating on restricted land.
35:39Simon Jack:JBS said 99.9 % of its cattle purchases meet its socio-environmental criteria and it also said it was working to implement a new procedure to cover all links in the supply chain. So I mean we've not had a bumper controversy.
35:53Zing Tsjeng:And also other people will point out that you know beef is a very inefficient way of delivering protein in terms of you know methane emissions and what stuff both on land use, animal treatment, environmental grounds, child welfare. There's plenty to go out here. I mean, they're going to have to score pretty highly. And that's on top of a major bribery scandal as well. I think they're scoring pretty high for me on the controversy stakes.
36:20Simon Jack:I mean, I feel like without the bribery scandal, they would already score pretty high. But with that bribery scandal and it being one of the biggest corruption scandals in Brazilian history, if not the biggest. I think it's got to be a nine out of 10.
36:32Zing Tsjeng:Yeah, definitely a nine. I mean, it's possibly, OK, yeah, a nine. Let's, you know, let's call it a nine.
36:38Simon Jack:Let's move on to power.
36:40Zing Tsjeng:Yes. Well, one of the tests we often do for power is that can you bring up the White House and talk to the president? And I think the answer to that is I'm not sure he's going to take every call straight off the bat, but he definitely has access. In 2025, Joe Esley met privately with President Trump. The meeting came a few weeks after the White House imposed 50 % tariffs on most Brazilian imports. That was entirely eliminated. Mainly, you know, the US will say is because there's a lot of appetite for beef. You don't want to push up prices to consumers when you're importing a lot of beef. And bear in mind, Brazilian business leaders have been lobbying the US administration very hard to ease those tariffs.
37:18Zing Tsjeng:And one of the other four leaders said, I'm doing myself a disservice saying this because I work really hard to bring those tariffs down. But it was 99 % Batista.
37:26Simon Jack:Wow, that is quite the observation of your rival's power.
37:30Zing Tsjeng:Yeah, important politically as well.
37:32Simon Jack:Well, Joe Wesley has also been credited as a major force between a rapporteur between Trump and the Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. He played a key role during the US operation in Venezuela, serving as an unofficial Trump emissary.
37:46Zing Tsjeng:Yeah, he shuttled between Washington DC and Caracas, meeting with Venezuela's interim president before and after he met with US officials.
37:55Simon Jack:But JBS's holding company said Joesley Batista is not a representative of any government.
38:01Zing Tsjeng:And even within Brazil, since Operation Car Wash and the scandal there, they've been regaining political clout, including appearing alongside President Lula at public events. So it seems they've managed to be rehabilitated politically.
38:14Simon Jack:I mean, it is quite the journey from a plea deal with federal prosecutors to standing next to your country's president and talking to the president of the United States. Yeah. That's quite the resurrection. I think these guys score pretty high for me.
38:28Zing Tsjeng:Yeah, for sure. Both within Brazil and on the wider stage. I'm going to give them possibly, I'm going to give them a seven.
38:36Simon Jack:Oh, I'm going to go one higher and say an eight out of 10, because I think it's just something about the fact that they were able to come back from that huge corruption scandal to probably even greater levels of power than before. That's pretty impressive.
38:51Zing Tsjeng:Yeah. And legacy, what will they be remembered for? I mean, I suppose this kind of large scale, industrial scale farming is something we've seen across the world. They certainly revolutionised the food industry in Brazil, made Brazil a massive, major force in food supply. I mean, they will go down for better or worse as kind of folk heroes in terms of Brazilian businessmen, I think.
39:14Simon Jack:And absolute villains if you're a vegetarian or vegan listening to this.
39:18Zing Tsjeng:Yeah, billions of dead animals.
39:19Simon Jack:Billions and billions of dead animals. What was that stat you were talking about earlier?
39:24Zing Tsjeng:Something along the lines of if we killed as many people as we do animals, the human race will only last a couple of weeks.
39:31Simon Jack:God, I mean, that really does put it all into perspective.
39:34Zing Tsjeng:We'll have our producers check that for accuracy. But I think that's probably about right.
39:38Simon Jack:I think their legacy will be one of how in our current post-shame era, you can have probably some of the worst things happen to you as a businessman, as someone who leads a company. and if you manoeuvre your way right, you can just make a comeback.
39:54Zing Tsjeng:Yeah, yeah, I agree. That's not a particularly salutary lesson, I don't think, to learn. Well, it is a salutary lesson. It's not a very edifying lesson, perhaps.
40:01Simon Jack:It's true. I think for that, I've got to give them, I think, an 8 out of 10. If you run a company where almost everyone in the world has probably eaten your meat, I think that makes you score very highly indeed in this category.
40:14Zing Tsjeng:OK, legacy, 8 for me.
40:16Simon Jack:8 from you and 8 from me.
40:17Zing Tsjeng:So the question is, are they good, bad or just another two billionaires? What do you think?
40:23Simon Jack:Email goodbadbillionaire at bbc.com or drop us a text or WhatsApp to 001 917 686 1176 and tell us what you think.
40:32Zing Tsjeng:And don't forget to include your name as we may well read out your message on a future episode.
40:41Simon Jack:So we're taking a break for a few weeks, but don't worry, we'll be back with even more billionaires for you to get your teeth into. and maybe there'll be a few more billionaires in the world by then.
40:49Zing Tsjeng:There probably will be. Thank you everyone for listening in the meantime. Do keep getting in touch. We've had some great ideas on people we should cover on Good Bad Billionaire. We're always open for suggestions.
40:59Simon Jack:So listen up in September to see if any of your suggestions actually made the airwaves.
41:06Simon Jack:Good Bad Billionaire is a BBC World Service podcast produced by Hannah Hufford. The researcher is Hannah Ramazani. The editor is Paul Smith and it's a BBC Studios production.
41:15Zing Tsjeng:For the BBC World Service, the senior commissioning producer is Sarah Green and the commissioning editor is John Manel.
From the publisher
From a small Brazilian butcher’s shop to the world’s largest meat empire, Wesley and Joesley Batista built a global powerhouse feeding millions every day. Journalist Zing Tsjeng and BBC business editor Simon Jack trace the Batista brothers' rise from teenage entrepreneurs learning the family trade to billionaires dominating the global food supply. But behind their staggering growth lies another story - a sprawling corruption scandal involving bribery, insider trading allegations, and secret recordings that rocked Brazil’s political establishment. Despite jail time, massive fines, and global scrutiny, the Batista brothers staged an extraordinary comeback, rebuilding their business and joining the billionaire ranks. Good Bad Billionaire is the podcast that explores the lives of the super-rich and famous, tracking their wealth, philanthropy, business ethics, and success. There are leaders who made their money in Silicon Valley, on Wall Street and in high street fashion. From iconic celebrities and CEOs to titans of technology, the podcast unravels tales of fortune, power, economics, ambition and moral responsibility. Simon and Zing put their subjects to the test with a playful, totally unscientific scorecard — then hand the verdict over to you: are they good, bad, or simply billionaires? Here's how to contact the team: email goodbadbillionaire@bbc.com or send a text or WhatsApp to +1 (917) 686-1176. Find out more about the show and read our privacy notice at bbcworldservice.com/goodbadbillionaire.
