There are hundreds of horse assembly centres in Argentina, so-called acopios. Most are unknown to the European auditors. The Argentinian authorities select assembly centres for audits. Usually, they pick model farms. So, we decide to visit assembly centres that are hidden from inspection.

We pay a visit to the acopio outside the town of Venado…

When we arrive at the Land L slaughterhouse on Friday morning, it is raining heavily and will continue raining until Monday. The horses are standing crowded together in the open, soaking wet. There are shelters in some of the pens, but their size is insufficient for the number of horses. In a few places, we see hay lying in the mud. According to a…

We drive to the acopio (horse assembly centre) in Santiago Temple, which is vast. We have been here many times before. What we find is always the same. In the middle of the acopio, there is a huge pile of carcasses with hundreds of dead horses.

A storm has passed recently. Trees and branches are lying around. The holding pens and feeding places…

There are hundreds of horse assembly centres in Argentina, so-called acopios. Today, we visit once again the acopio in Ibicuy with the sacred name of “Espiritu Santo”. It belongs to the slaughter horse dealer Jorge Saap, known as “El Turco”.

The temperature has reached 38°C, but the horses have no shade available, not even from trees. We see…

We first visited Raúl Onorato’s farm in San Vicente at the end of August, after the confiscation of some of his horses in the “field of horror” in Ezeiza. At that time, we saw no horses at his farm. Today, 2½ months later, there are several hundreds of horses on his pastures. It is a sunny day but the animals have no shade available, not even from…

In August, 400 malnourished and dying horses were confiscated in Ezeiza from the Onorato family clan, who is known to have been delivering stolen horses to EU-approved slaughterhouses for many years. The horses are now in the care of our Argentinian partner CRRE (Centro de Rescate y Rehabilitación Equino).

The authorities do not allow the horses…

Together with our partner Animals’ Angels USA, we have been monitoring the horse feedlot in Shelby, Montana, for many years. The feedlot serves as the US assembly centre for Bouvry, the largest Canadian horse slaughterhouse. Our previous investigations have uncovered tremendous abuse and neglect.

We return to Shelby in October 2019 and observe the…

While our team is in Argentina investigating about the illegal trade of stolen horses, we learn about another case. More than 400 malnourished horses have been discovered on a field in Ezeiza near Buenos Aires. 25 of them are dead, four are dying. These horses belong to a dealer named Raúl Onorato, the father-in-law of Hernan Arbeo who recently…

We visit the acopio (assembly centre) of horse dealer Angel Langhoff for the first time. There are approx. 100 horses present, including a few ponies and foals. Most of them are kept in small holding pens with dirt floors. They have no weather protection. The condition of the horses varies greatly. While some are malnourished, others are rather…