Transcript

Part Two: That Time Volkswagen Operated a Slave Plantation in Brazil | BEHIND THE BASTARDS

From Behind the Bastards · Episode page · Watch on YouTube

· 52 min · 9,705 words · 153 timestamped sections

This is the full, timestamped transcript of "Part Two: That Time Volkswagen Operated a Slave Plantation in Brazil | BEHIND THE BASTARDS", an episode of Behind the Bastards published October 17, 2025 (52 min, about 9,705 words). It mentions 14 people, works and ideas, including Ricardo Rosende, Edivon Allen Carrar, Expedito Batista, Christopher Culper, Friedrich Wilhelm Schultzwank.

What this episode is about

The content explores Volkswagen's controversial history of operating a slave plantation in Brazil, delving into the ethical implications and historical context surrounding this dark chapter of the company's past. It highlights the ongoing discourse around corporate accountability and the lasting impact of such practices on communities and societies.

Key takeaways

  • Volkswagen in Brazil: a grim reminder that corporate greed often overlooks human cost.
  • Diddy’s sentencing reveals a justice system more forgiving to celebrities than ordinary folks, but it’s progress nonetheless.
  • Liberation theology might not be mainstream, but when it shows up, it’s a rare bright spot in dark narratives.
  • In the 60s, VW executives celebrated military dictatorships—proof that 'rational order' often masks irrational cruelty.
  • The secret police and VW: a partnership forged in profit over people, echoing historical horrors with modern corporate complicity.

Who speaks in this episode?

What is discussed, and when

  1. – 10:00: Friedrich Wilhelm Schultzwank, MST, Anderson Clayton, Goodyear
  2. – 15:00: Ricardo Rosende
  3. – 20:00: Edivon Allen Carrar
  4. – 25:00: Expedito Batista
  5. – 35:00: Arnaldo Filo
  6. – 45:00: Joseé Tiro
  7. – 50:00: Christopher Culper

Notable quotes from "Part Two: That Time Volkswagen Operated a Slave Plantation in Brazil | BEHIND THE BASTARDS"

  • To these changes. Volkswagen board member Friedrich Wilhelm Schultzwank rejoiced when secret police arrested trade union leaders on factory premises.
    about Friedrich Wilhelm Schultzwank · at
  • Sent her away and eliminated on the her on the way, explained the sister of one such worker, Isabelle Rodriguez, a pedagogue and farmer who has been working at the MST for 35…
    about MST · at
  • Against for forced labor a sacred calling. Right? This was a religious duty to him. which is good. and he made it known publicly that his office would investigate all serious allegations that people were being forced to work.
    about Ricardo Rosende · at
  • And to journalists with several publications including the Washington Post. He accused Chico and his men of beating and disappearing laborers. In one instance, he claims to…
    about Edivon Allen Carrar · at
  • One of the men selected for this delegation was Sao Paulo state lawmaker Expedito Batista. Now, he had actually worked in a Volkswagen factory previously and was likely invited…
    about Expedito Batista · at
  • Yeah. So that's that's good. That's pretty direct. the security chief is a guy named Arnaldo Filo who concluded that VW wasn't directly guilty of any criminal action, but that it had responsibility for what had happened by.
    about Arnaldo Filo · at
  • Quote from the post. Wow. The first person to testify was Volkswagen's representative, Joseé Tiro. He said that the company didn't monitor human rights as rigidly in those days, but that it.
    about Joseé Tiro · at
  • Were only paid once the work was in order. The company couldn't not know how laborers were treated. Ignorance is not credible. It's absolutely impossible as the ranch was…
    about Christopher Culper · at

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

  • Ricardo Rosende — Person · Referenced investigator / whistleblowing clergy · 2 mentions · first at
    Catholic priest who investigated and publicized allegations of forced labor/slavery tied to Volkswagen’s Brazil ranch, helping trigger official scrutiny and later testimony.
  • Edivon Allen Carrar — Person · Referenced survivor/witness · 1 mention · first at
    Escapee who provided early direct testimony to Rosende and later to journalists, alleging beatings, disappearances, and killings by labor contractors tied to VW’s ranch labor system.
  • Expedito Batista — Person · Referenced public official / delegation member · 1 mention · first at
    São Paulo state lawmaker who joined VW’s fact-finding visit and instead sought independent verification, encountering a tied worker being forcibly returned—key corroboration.
  • Christopher Culper — Person · Referenced historian / commissioned investigator · 3 mentions · first at
    Historian hired by Volkswagen (per episode) to report on VW’s dictatorship-era activities; his conclusions argue VW could not credibly claim ignorance of slave-like conditions.
  • Friedrich Wilhelm Schultzwank — Person · Referenced corporate actor (VW board member) · 1 mention · first at
    Cited as a Volkswagen board member who welcomed repression of union leaders, illustrating VW leadership’s alignment with Brazil’s dictatorship and anti-labor actions.
  • Arnaldo Filo — Person · Referenced state security official · 1 mention · first at
    State security chief who concluded labor contractors treated workers like slaves and that VW bore responsibility by omission, shaping the official record even as enforcement lagged.
  • Joseé Tiro — Person · Referenced corporate representative (trial witness) · 1 mention · first at
    Volkswagen’s representative who testified first in the 2025 proceedings, asserting VW investigated at the time and found no irregularities—central to VW’s denial posture.
  • Jelda Pereira — Person · Referenced witness/advocate · 1 mention · first at
    Quoted (via Intercept reporting) as MST national director describing evidence found in a graveyard for enslaved laborers and lack of investigation.
    Common for them to be worked to death and disposed of. A 2024 article for the Intercept describes what was found at one graveyard for enslaved laborers.
  • Isabelle Rodriguez — Person · Referenced witness/advocate · 1 mention · first at
    Quoted (via Intercept reporting) as a pedagogue and farmer working with MST, describing patterns of violence and disappearance of workers tied to the forced-labor system.
    Sent her away and eliminated on the her on the way, explained the sister of one such worker, Isabelle Rodriguez, a pedagogue and farmer who has been working at the MST for 35…

Companies & orgs

  • MST — Company · Referenced organization · 1 mention · first at
    Mentioned in the context of documenting the atrocities at Volkswagen's slave plantation.
  • Anderson Clayton — Company · Referenced company · 1 mention · first at
    Mentioned as one of the corporations investing in Brazil during the military dictatorship.
    Money in selling to and utilizing Brazil's natural resources. that OWP write up lists other corporations like Mitsubishi Nestle Goodyear Swift Bomberendus, and Anderson Clayton…
  • Goodyear — Company · Referenced company · 1 mention · first at
    Mentioned as one of the corporations investing in Brazil during the military dictatorship.
    Money in selling to and utilizing Brazil's natural resources. that OWP write up lists other corporations like Mitsubishi Nestle Goodyear Swift Bomberendus, and Anderson Clayton…
  • Nestle — Company · Referenced company · 1 mention · first at
    Mentioned as one of the corporations investing in Brazil during the military dictatorship.
    Money in selling to and utilizing Brazil's natural resources. that OWP write up lists other corporations like Mitsubishi Nestle Goodyear Swift Bomberendus, and Anderson Clayton…
  • Swift — Company · Referenced company · 1 mention · first at
    Mentioned as one of the corporations investing in Brazil during the military dictatorship.
    Money in selling to and utilizing Brazil's natural resources. that OWP write up lists other corporations like Mitsubishi Nestle Goodyear Swift Bomberendus, and Anderson Clayton…

Full transcript with timestamps

Oh, welcome back to Behind the Bastards, a podcast uh that you're listening to right now. And this is part two of our episodes on Volkswagen's slave plantation in Brazil. So, you you probably know what's going on here. You're not you're not dropping into part two of this specific episode just on your own. That would be weird.

And I hope not. This I feel they'll both be depressing, but to to choose just pick this second part of it,

that's that's maniac [ __ ] That's like 5150 [ __ ] right? Like that's a 72-hour hold for you.

Seek help. Yeah. What are you What are you doing? Um, and we're coming in, of course, on the day that Diddy just got sentenced. That's fun. Have you Have you caught this yet? This This happened in between us uh uh recording part one and part two.

Mhm. The court art is uh something else very special. Uh he does not look happy. I had hoped for a more than that. He's more than four years. So, at least it's not

it's not nothing. I don't know what what do you want. This is this is 2025. Like

I I am like, wow. He went to trial. Yeah. Yeah. He's going he's he's staying in prison. He's not going to get time served for what he already did. That's not nothing. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. It's sad that like I'm looking at that and being like, well, I I I was worried it would be worse. But look at this picture of him. I'm also I'm really vibing on this uh this drawing of him. I love good cord art. Yeah.

Yes. Yeah. It's beautiful. He does not look happy. His hair is totally white. Also, this has to be a choice. The clearly it looks like a baift behind him. You can see they've like drawn his badge and it looks like an anarchy circle A symbol on the baleiff's badge. I don't know why they made that choice.

You You are not You're not reading into it. That to my untrained That is a circle A, right? Like that's just a circle A. Hell yeah.

Yeah. Cool stuff. Let's Let's talk about something that makes sense, you know? Something something that makes us feel good, that makes us feel

optimistic. Oh, wait. No, we're talking about slavery in Brazil. We're not talking about any of that at all. Maggie, you want to plug anything before we we get back into talking about Brazil slave plantations?

Well, Volkswagen in Brazil. Yeah. I I I I am so excited to get back into talking about that. Um, but in case you need a little bit of a headsp space before, yeah, you can check out my YouTube channel. Uh, I do video essays, uh, on cultural stuff and film. Um, and then, yeah, over on Nebula, uh, there's a nice little show, Amy's dead and Dreamhouse. Uh, kids show for adults, adult topics, uh, under the guise of a kid show. Um, we don't however cover uh business practices. Um, so I think we'll cover that here today on the second part of this podcast.

Excellent. Maybe just give some advice. Yeah, we'll be talking a lot about that.

And weirdly, I mean, we just started talking about the strange bedfellows that politics make, but like one of the good guys in this is the Catholic Church, or at least a a Catholic priest. um which doesn't happen often on this show, but it does happen more when we're talking about Latin America, you know. Uh so we've got some liberation theology guys. So our Catholic listeners, this is what you get to feel good about.

You get one. You get one. You get one. Every now and then we have a good priest who comes in. Usually when we bring up the Catholic Church on the podcast about bad people, it's a dark story. But uh not today. Not today, folks. M

when the military hunters started putting out feelers to multinational corporations seeing who might be interested in investing in the Brazilian economy, VW executives weren't just going along with the flow. They were eager supporters of the military dictatorship. After the former left-leaning president was forced out, directors at Volkswagen were quoted as describing what had happened as the restoration of a rational political order. Oh, thank God we got rid of those democratically elected guys. you know, some dudes with guns coming in. As Germans, we feel really confident that this is going to end well.

Yes, I feel safe now amongst my people. Mhm. Yeah. I mean, again, these are guys, we're talking the 60s and 70s here. So, anybody who's over like 40 or 50, you know what their background was, right? Like,

wow. Doing that math. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of the people who are running this company, not great backstories, you know? Um

so um now the irrational thing when they talk about you the dictatorship restoring irrational political order what they're saying is irrational is the idea that the government of a country that Volkswagen might have profit interest in would have any other priorities beyond maximizing the amount of money that in multinational corporations could take out of the country. Right? A write up by the Organization for World Peace summarizes the reaction of members of the VW board to these changes. Volkswagen board member Friedrich Wilhelm Schultzwank rejoiced when secret police arrested trade union leaders on factory premises.

In so doing, he endorsed a regime that perceived its own citizens as mindless autoonatons that committed widespread torture that ran hidden concentration camps to repress uncooperative indigenous tribes and precipitated the environmental destruction of the Amazon. Who guy? Friedrich Philhelm Schultzwang. Uh, huzzah. The secret police have arrested union organizers. We can really

Yeah, it's it's Yeah, the Nazis didn't go away. They just moved around a little bit. They shuffled, you know.

Umh, now, as I noted, there's a good uh uh Chumba Womba song about that. Now, as I noted earlier, Volkswagen was participating in a wider system embraced by the military huna and a lot of foreign corporations that's had a profit interest in Brazil, which is a large country. There's always been a lot of money in selling to and utilizing Brazil's natural resources. Uh that OWP write up lists other corporations like Mitsubishi Nestle Goodyear Swift Bomberendus, and Anderson Clayton as all investing in Brazil during this period at the express request of the military dictatorship. The whole reason these companies wanted to work in Brazil, is because the HUTA would let you tear apart the Amazon, which climate scientists generally consider to be the lungs of the world for quick profit. And because labor unions and the rights of workers were among the first things cracked down on by the dictatorship,

there was no oversight for how your workers were treated. So you could really turn a profit doing this, right? As long as you didn't care about how certain people were treated,

right? every day. Yeah. I mean, and obviously nothing like this has ever happened before or since. This is the only time this happened just in Brazil. Uh just with these companies.

Yeah. Um Mhm. So from 1974 to 1986, Volkswagen operated their parate farm through a local subsidiary and tried to generate a profit from ranching and logging. It's unclear to me how many workers were victimized during the span of time. Court filings have since indicated at least 300 people were hired through what were known as irregular contracts. Some sources I found put the real number at close to a thousand people. One of the only ways to escape was through contracting malaria or some other serious illness. And this was not always a way to escape, but sometimes you could get out because they just didn't want to deal with you. There was no real medical care for workers beyond the most basic treatment of wounds and sometimes you couldn't even count on that. Um, depending on when and where it happened, it was uncommon in some cases for workers to have any kind of medical treatment for even those basic injuries.

People on the edge of death might be allowed to leave, but it was at least as common for them to be worked to death and disposed of. A 2024 article for the Intercept describes what was found at one graveyard for enslaved laborers. Some of the bones were full of strings, as if the person had been tied up before they died, says Jelda uh Pereira, national director of the MST, landless workers movement's production sector. The crimes, however, were never properly investigated. It was a very common logic to put the person to work and then when she made some charge, they sent uh they sent her away and eliminated on the her on the way, explained the sister of one such worker, Isabelle Rodriguez, a pedagogue and farmer who has been working at the MST for 35 years. And this is something you'll hear a lot specifically with Volkswagens workers that a lot of these people they're not just worked to death and buried. Some of

them were strung up. This is a punishment when like workers would not, you know, would refuse to work when they would try to escape, if they would get caught, if they would

uh resist in any way the gate, they would be strung up and sometimes hung until dead,

you know, as a way to make sure everyone else kept working. Right. Right. Right. Right. Yeah. There there's a many parallels to um uh you know a lot of the fishing industry. They also you know trap people out on a boat in tenuous contracts that they fulfill. Uh

yeah. Yeah. Well, and it's this these are the kind of things there's no oversight. any sort of like unionizing, any sort of like workers rights has been utterly cracked down on by the regime, which is part of what's appealing the Volkswagen, right? Is that they can just bring they can just have these contractors do whatever like and no one's checking in. They as as far as they're concerned,

there's no one policing how they treat these people. These are not, as that previous quote said, they're not looking at these workers as human beings. These are automatons. They're robots. You plug them in, you work them until they break, and then you throw them away. And if one of them isn't working right, you string them up as an example to the others, you know,

right? And there's still no cars being They're not making cars. They're clearing They're clear cutting forests for cows,

right? This is in your wheelhouse, VW. What the [ __ ] Just need that to sink in. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Mhm.

This is this I mean this would be like if if Cool Zone Media started a cattle farm in Brazil. It's like this is so far outside of our wheelhouse like why why are you even for for the first like even outside of the ethical stuff why are you in this business?

Um the answer is they thought they'd make a buck. They didn't. Um because labor rights and organizing had been so comprehensively shattered by the military. Hunda. The first outside entity to look into the horrifying situation at Volkswagen's uh farm was a Catholic priest named Ricardo Rosende. As a new priest and a young man, he was stationed at a dascese in the par state relatively close to the Volkswagen ranch. He was made the regional coordinator for the bishop's conference land pastoral commission or CPT which was formed in 1975 to support peasants and rural workers. Now, it would be fair to say that like the CPT, it's a it's a good attempt, but it's kind of like a band-aid on an arterial wound, right?

But this is also the only kind of oversight for poor workers that exists during the military dictatorship. Unionizing has effectively been like I mean, people are being put in secret concentration camps for like being labor organizers right?

But you can't do that to the Catholic Church. I mean you can't obviously some priests and nuns throughout Latin America who are part of the same liberation theology which we'll talk about thing as Rosende are killed are assassinated but you can't whole scale if you're the military hundu you can't just go after the Catholic church whole hog right like that is a bridge too far cuz people everyone's Catholic basically right like if you do that you are going to get it's the same problem the Nazis had right where they didn't like the Catholic church Himmler especially saw it as an enemy But they had to co-opt and work with it because you can't just ban Catholicism in Germany. Like that is going to get you in trouble. Like that even the Nazis didn't feel like they had enough of a handle on things to do that.

Yeah. Um it's the Civ 6, you know, what is Yeah. Right. Right. You have to care somewhat about how much you're pissing these people off because these are kind of these are the people who are real people in your state, right? And so we can argue that like this land pastoral commission it's not like enough. There should have been much more here. But Rosende and his dascese get a lot of credit because they are they are the only people who can really do something here. Right? Because they have some ability to operate under the hunter without getting just completely annihilated. And and would be fair to say again, while this is not on its own a sufficient thing in order to replace what's been lost in the crackdown on on workers rights, Father Rosende is a pretty admirable person in all of this, I think, and he is unusually dedicated to the spirit of his work. As I noted earlier, Rosende was a

follower of what's known as the liberate as liberation theology. This was at the time a new creed that was particularly common in the Latin American segments of the Catholic Church and was dedicated to a broad support for emancipation from every kind of oppression. Right? And Rosende personally considered the fight against for forced labor a sacred calling. Right? This was a religious duty to him. Um which is good. and he made it known publicly that his office would investigate all serious allegations that people were being forced to work.

So he starts hearing Rosinde gets moved into this uh like to like work in this program in 1975 and he first starts hearing allegations that Volkswagen has a plantation in the Amazon and people are being enslaved there in 1977, two years later. The the very first claims come from a union organizer named Natal Ribero who said that he had been hired by he was a former union organizer but he goes to Rosende and says that you know I was hired by ranch by these gateos and they forced to pay me for my work and he tells Rosende that like yeah there's a farm out there it's guarded by people he described as professional pistolos these are just you know gunmen right and that they were abusing workers that there were hundreds of people who weren't being allowed to leave were being held at gunpoint in night. So, Rosinde hears about this in 77, but all he's got is this one guy's claim. He doesn't have hard evidence. He doesn't

have like anything he can really go to the state with. And this is something where if you kind of go off halfcocked on this when you've just got this one, and this is a union organizer, so it's not someone that like the government's going to take super seriously. If you just go off immediately, Right. Exactly. Exactly.

Yeah. They'll kill him. They'll Yeah. Right. Or they'll they'll clean up their act enough that nothing else will get out. Right. So he resende he does the hard thing which is he keeps digging right he keeps trying to collect accounts he doesn't give up on this but he doesn't immediately pull the trigger on it too cuz he's he's trying to see like can I get enough that I can make an unimpeachable case um he gets a major shot in the arm to his efforts in 1981 when he meets his first escapee from the ranch uh Edivon Allen Carrar who told him quote a man tried to flee and was caught by Chico who's one of these gateaus Chico beat him with a beam. So, this is his first he's talked to this one guy who had formerly worked there.

Then he talks to another guy who was like outright enslaved and had some direct stories about like being tortured by these guards. So, he he's he's kind of slowly starting to build this like this basis of accounting of accounts on what had happened.

Alen Carr would go on to provide extensive testimony both to the state and to journalists with several publications including the Washington Post. He accused Chico and his men of beating and disappearing laborers. In one instance, he claims to have seen Chico and other gateaus burn down a parcel of forest filled with workers who he believes were burnt to death. These men were still working at the time and they may have just been murdered to save the gate the risk of freeing them, right? That they were going to be like moving on. And it kind of sounds like it was a situation where they were like, "Well, we can either let these we we don't have anything to do with these folks, but if we let them go, they'll spread more stories. What if we just light them on fire and burn down a chunk of the Amazon?"

That one. That one. Let's do that one. Right. Right. It's a a perfect ad for Volkswagen right here. Um Yeah. Volkswagen, the hottest cars. And that's that's bleak. You know what? Forget I said that. Here's some ads.

Wow. We're back. So, Rosende is increasingly, you know, building up his kind of account of what's been happening in this slave plantation. And as he talks to more and more people,

his investigation reveals these kind of patchy and incomplete stories that nonetheless pres paint a pretty bitter picture. Workers were being kept dozens of miles away from the main Volkswagen compound. They bedded under clear plastic sheets and they drank unfiltered water. He wrote in 1981 of one woman who managed to flee. Quote, "They fled through the forest because if they'd taken the road, the gate would have killed them. They walked 155 km." Now, by 81, he's got been doing this for three or four years. He wants to take action. He wants to stop this, but the political situation at the time makes that impossible. And Rosende is only able to get away with anything at all because he's a representative of the church. And even so, he starts being surveiled by the dictatorship. He's labeled a communist sympathi sympathizer and a subversive.

And the first witnesses he meets, he this isn't enough for him to really go on yet, even four years in. So, it's not until early 1983, that this really gets blown open for him. He gets approached by a group of young men who'd been hired to work clearing land owned by Volkswagen. These kids had all been part of a local soccer league in their hometown. And one day a friend of theirs comes in. He's like, "Hey guys. Hey buddies." This guy's been out for a while. He's like, "I'm looking for men to do some contract work down south.

Do you guys want a It pays great. You know, there's good. It's a good job." Um, Rosende would write, quote, "Among the five workers who fled the farm, there were three were only 17. They were lured to work there, not only because of a promised payment, but also because they were told that they would be able to play soccer there.

Soccer. You'll basically just be playing soccer the whole time, you know? Oh my god.

Who wouldn't want to get paid to play soccer? Now, this is so sadistic. I will say on the main Volkswagen ranch there was a soccer field but laborers like this the people who are like being enslaved to clear land they're not allowed on that compound facility right the people who are doing

they're not even near it necessarily miles away this is the nice as we'll talk about there are some really nice facilities for regular employees who are like managing this cattle farm those people are treated it's a pretty good job for those people It's the folks doing this backbreaking labor in the jungle that are, you know, being treated this way and so they don't have access to the soccer field. Now, within the main body of the camp, which is a mix of there's some skilled local workers and there's a lot of foreign employees, right? There's Germans, there's Swiss, you know, there there's a lot of like people who have been brought in for their skills and these men and their families enjoyed a high quality of life. There were gardens. There were paved roads. There were proper brick houses. There was a school for children of workers. There was a club, a restaurant, and a bar as well as a pool.

Um, now the kids who had escaped, these 17year-olds who flee home to [ __ ] make some money and play soccer.

They tell Father Aende that they didn't have access to any of that stuff. They had been sold to a gate named Chico. This is our second time hearing about Chico, right? This is the guy who burnt down a forest with people in it, right? Yeah, Chico's a busy man.

Um, and Chico made them work in a forest labor camp under a codery of armed men. One of the kids died of malnutrition and malaria. Another was shot in the leg trying to escape. A woman who worked with them was raped when her husband escaped without her. Um, on one occasion, one of the boys found a dead man in the forest who had been strung up and beaten to death. Again, these are 17year-olds. Mhm.

Now, these kids do escape eventually, right? They weren't allowed to. This is something that they they kind of manage to make it out on their own. Um because they they're in debt, right? The gateau says that they owe money. And the way they're able to finally get out is they they they convince him that they've been conscripted by the military. So, in other words, they only got out of forced labor by convincing their bosses that the state wanted to force them to work for the military and would get Right. Right. Right. And like you'll get in trouble if you keep us, right? We're we're expected, you know, like that's how [ __ ] up the situation is for these kids.

Brave of them to do. They they they go they try to go above him and it works. Wow.

Yeah. They're smart kids. Um so these kids get out and they're they are this is kind of what blows the case open for Father Resende, right? that now he has

he's got these five kids who are willing who have like these this just really hideously grave accounts and they're willing to like

talk under their own names about what's happened. They they're naming specific people. Um like this is kind of what he'd been waiting for the whole time. And the boys told Father Aende that they expected at least 600 laborers were still stuck clearing land and working as slaves. The priest horrified tried to schedule a meeting with uh Yatar Barbalo who was the the state governor of the par state and Rosende is refused initially but this does not dissuade him from pursuing the truth. So the father flies to Brazilia with one of the escaped kids and he goes to the media and he gives a press conference uh in a place that the hunter couldn't ignore, the National Bishop's Conference of Brazil. The next day, newspapers featured the headline, "Priest says there are slaves on Volkswagen farm."

Right? So, this is he he takes this kid out in front and is like, "They can't crack down on a bishop's conference

and like they'll have to pay attention to fight." And this is a brave move. He's putting himself in danger and this kid is putting himself in danger to do this. But it works. Part of why it works is that the German media picks up the story. You know, the Brazilian media is very much under control of the regime, but Volkswagen is a German company and Germany has a free press. And the German free press are like, "Hey, VW,

this sounds pretty bad." Like, as Germans, we're kind of and bad. We're kind of sensitive about slave labor allegations. What What's going on down there?

Uhhuh. Now, VW denies everything, of course, but they couldn't entirely ignore what had come out. So they decided to authorize a factf finding mission to quote shed light on the truth. This is like the standard playbook of like, oh well this is definitely not true, but just to make sure you know everybody knows how not true it is. We're going to we'll send a factf finding mission. We we'll get these

we'll send them. Yeah, we got it. Don't Yeah, come over here, father. We'll take care of this. You know, we'll get you up with some local politicians. We'll take you to the our our ranch and you can see how nice it really is. Right. So, Volkswagen invites a bunch of their critics to visit the ranch and see what they claimed was the reality.

One of the men selected for this delegation was Sao Paulo state lawmaker Expedito Batista. Now, he had actually worked in a Volkswagen factory previously and was likely invited by the company executives because they were like, "Well, this guy's a former employee. He'll be sympathetic to us, right?" Um, this proved to be a mis miscalculation. Batista told OSV News, a local uh uh publication, quote, "They just wanted to show me the modern buildings they had recently built there, but I asked for a truck that could take me to a nearby city where I would meet with Father Rosende and the local labor union leader. The vehicle had to take a road that was not part of the visit planned by Volkswagen." That's when Batista saw a farm truck carrying some people and asked for it to be stopped.

Uh, and this is Batista. A worker had his arms tied and was being taken by a labor contractor uh known as Abalau. I ordered them to immediately release the man. Abalo argued that the worker was trying to escape the farm, but that he was in debt with it, so they had to get him back. So

So they just say it, right? Well, we got we can't let him just have worked for us for free, you know?

Like he's got to pay to work for us, obviously. But this guy's obviously been beaten and is clearly being taken against his will to work. Like they've just stumbled. This delegation Volkswagen brings them in to impress them with how nice the main facility is. And this guy drives and grabs the priest and on their way back they just stumble upon proof.

That is wild. I said take the other road. I said go the other way around. [ __ ] We should have had him take the bus. God damn it. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, this is like a this is like a Jurassic Park problem, but instead of the raptors getting loose, it's this this got out of pocket and, you know, forcibly hauling a man back in chains. Um, it's a lot like Jurassic Park.

So, it is. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Now you've got not just these eyewitness accounts, but now credible members of like this this factf finding mission, right? who member of the clergy and elected leaders have seen this going on, right?

This is this is like the worst case scenario for VW because you have pretty hard evidence now. Um

so the investigatory team, which now has the father with them, heads back to the ranch and they do the original meeting that they'd been scheduled to have. They meet with Volkswagen's corporate PR manager for Brazil, a guy named Paulo DiCastro. And they meet with the ranch's director, Friedrich Buger, who was a Swiss na swish who was a Swiss national from an article in the Washington Post. Quote, he touted its commitment to social service. According to an account by a reporter who accompanied the delegation, saying the farm's 328 direct employees and their families had it great. Discounted food, free medical care, quality schooling. The delegation, Rosende said, was not permitted to visit the deforestation camps. One day, though, one of its laborers managed to find them. He went straight to the priest and touched his arm. The man's hand was hot with fever. "You have to save me," the priest recall recorded him

saying. "Save you from what? I've worked here for 9 months and I can't leave." The man said, "I have malaria and I am sick, Padre. I want to leave." So, that's again pretty bad. This is how like they can't even keep a lid on this thing. the least bit. As soon as these guys show up, they just start stumbling into evidence of crimes against humanity.

Honestly, pretty incredible. Like very uh they made the wrong pot and kettle and invited everyone to tea time to part.

No, they wouldn't notice anything. We'll show them how nice our basketball court is. You know, look at this club. Look at how good the food is here. They're not going to notice the sick people begging them to die. Um, so the father goes to Buger, who's this Swiss dude running the ranch, and he says, he tells him, "There's a problem. You're hiding something." And Buger says, "This isn't my problem." And he tells them, "It's the Gatau's problem, right? I got nothing to do with this. You guys, I'm not I'm only responsible for these workers who are being treated well, cuz these guys are actual employees of the Volkswagen subsidiary. I can't. How could I possibly expect to know what's happening 10 miles away with the guys that I'm paying

to make other guys work for them? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I want to get into the detail. You know, when you get granular like that, obviously.

Right. Obviously. Yeah. How how much can you expect me to do? You know, I'm sitting here. I'm in the jungle. I'm pretending not to hear the screams. Nothing else is my job. Obviously.

I also love the Catholic priest being uh I I know a liar. Uh, I know I know many liars and I can see that in you.

Yeah. Like I I'm a Catholic priest. Like I have met I have met better liars than you.

It's kind of my job. You're hiding something and I'm one to know. Yeah. Yeah. On their way out of the area, uh, the delegation actually runs into one of the gate. this guy, we've talked about him a little bit earlier, to Abalo who was driving back into camp in his Chevy truck, quote, wearing a cross necklace and a cowboy hat, which really must have pissed off the father. Like, you're wearing a [ __ ] cross while you're Come on, man.

Come on. Take it off to do the slavery stuff at least. It feels like it's on purpose at this point. He's mocking them,

right? Right. Like, I feel kind like you're just kind of [ __ ] like insulting uh the faith here. Um, so they they run into this guy, Abalo, who's driving back to camp. Um, he's got his cross, his cowboy hat on, and Rosende questions him about the mistreatment of the workers, and the gate is like, "I don't use violence. I just use energy to keep my workers in line." Right.

Just energy, you know, kinetic energy. It's not hitting, it's kinetic energy. Yeah.

Oh my god. Oh yeah. He insisted, quote, "They're nasty goats and vagabons that take my money, then disappear into the forest." and he bragged that just 16 out of 408 workers on the ranch had fled and gotten away that year. One unsuccessful fugitive was in the back of his truck when the investigators found it. Abalau insisted the man had been eating more than he could afford and thus couldn't be freed again. Now he's eating too much. We can't just let this guy go, right?

We can't let this man be eating. So this is eating him. No. Right. This is a lot uh that that they found and the delegation they they put together enough detail on the enough info on this trip that it forces the state police to open an investigation. So police officers come in and they talk with laborers, they talk with the gate, with Volkswagen contractors, and they make a report which they send to the state security chief. And the state security chief writes a letter to the governor in late 1983 which concluded that the gate quote treat their contracted workers like slaves.

Wow. Yeah. So that's that's good. That's pretty pretty direct. Um, the security chief is a guy named Arnaldo Filo who concluded that VW wasn't directly guilty of any criminal action, but that it had responsibility for what had happened by omission. And he says, quote, "It's impossible that everything investigated inside the limits of its property occurred without any knowledge or action on its part." And I might say, "So why does why isn't he responsible? Why doesn't he have any responsibility here?" Right? Like that kind of seems like you're responsible if you like knew what was happening and you had the resources to have stopped it and you chose not to.

Yeah, I don't know. It seems a little more active than just Yeah, just not, you know,

not disclosing. Uhhuh. It It seems like pretty damning to me. Um but, you know, I'm not an expert on Brazilian law. It's probably a mix of corruption and also well, if I if I go too far, they might sue me. and he's kind of a little bit of a coward. I don't know. That's kind of my interpretation of it is he doesn't want to like go too far, you know,

and maybe get out of pocket here. Um but yeah, that that's that's partly me kind of um

guessing, parsing. Yeah. Yeah. I I think that's like a fair conclusion here. Several weeks after this all happens, uh the father gathers with a group of bishops in the state capital along with the governor uh who we talked about earlier, Barbello, and they confirm uh Barbalo confirms like his office is now looking into the case, which would be referred once he makes a conclusion to the federal prosecutor's office. So he's like, "Hey, I'm taking this seriously. Uh once my people come to a conclusion, we will send this up the ladder so it can be prosecuted, you know, at the highest possible level."

And this was a lie. I think it was just a delaying tactic. Okay. You said it so like you really meant it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. They don't do [ __ ] Uh a full year later, the ranch is still operating and no action has been taken against VW or it or her subsidi subsidiaries. There's no evidence that he had his office refer anything to the federal prosecutor's office. I think he just did this to buy time. um in August of 19

or he forgot about it or he forgot about it. He's he's a busy man, you know. Yeah.

Right. Right. Right. Right. Look, you can't you can't keep track of all of the slavery happening in your state, right? Like that just

obviously unreason trees to cut down. That's just one right one part of it all that I got to cut.

People can hide in forests. People can hide burning people to death in a forest. You know, it's just too much work for one man and all of his employees. Um, so in August of 1984, there's another delegation sent to the ranch. A group of state labor officials visit. Um, and they conclude that nothing meaningful has changed, that there's been no improvement in conditions, that workers are still basically being treated as slaves by the gate. And they further conclude that Volkswagen's ranch was quote a snapshot of all the other farms in the region where humble and illiterate laborers were easy prey for unscrupulous recruiters eyeing profits often with the complacency of the farm's owners. Still,

yeah, nothing gets done. No further steps are taken. By this point, the governor has moved on from being the governor to the Senate, which is probably why he never referred the state to the the case to the state at all. He was delaying cuz he was like, I'm not going to have this job. I don't need this heat. I'm just going to like wait until I can go do something else.

Um and when the shuffle the Nazi shuffle the Nazi shuffle. Yeah. He years later he's asked like, "Hey, did why didn't you do anything about this?" And he's like, "I don't remember this at all. You're saying I said something. I promised to refer people to prosecute something. That doesn't sound like me doing my job." No.

Yeah. It must have been some other governor. Um, so two months after this, 1984, this is the second state visit or the second delegation to visit the ranch, state police finally arrest one of the gateos, Abalau, after investigations on two separate farms unrelated to the Volkswagen farm, turned up another 107 enslaved workers working for this guy. The report named that other Gateau, Chico, who' provided workers for Volkswagen's farm, too, but they couldn't find him to prosecute him. Right. So the these guys, one of them is now being prosecuted, the other they just can't find.

Interest in the case dies down after this. Chico is investigated again two years later in July of 1986 under suspicion of trafficking workers in a nearby region. But again, nothing comes of the investigation. By 1986, Volkswagen is kind of looking at their balance sheet and they're like, "This isn't making us any money, right?" And it never really does. This is not a profitable enterprise. I kind of think the point was never for it to be super profitable. They would have liked that. I think the point is Volkswagen's in business in Brazil and the military huna wants companies doing stuff like this.

So I think there's a large portion of where their interest in this is less the money it makes directly and more the relationship it helps them build with the dictatorship. That's kind of my interpretation.

Yeah. It's like it's you know being paid an exposure uh via many people's lives and livelihoods.

Right. That's exactly it. Um, yeah, speaking of paid and exposure, we're not paid in exposure. We're paid by our advertisers. And, uh, let's let's hear from them now. And we're back. So, uh, in 1986, Volkswagen closes down their operation. They sell off their assets. They are cutting bait.

This does not mean the workers who'd been enslaved there get freed, right? Because these guys are property of the Gatau who still considered these men indebted to them. So the ranch workforce is sold and this is very much a chatt slavery moment where to try to get as much money as they can out of this these ghettos are are splitting up their labor force in some cases splitting up family members in order to auction workers off to the highest bidder.

Um 86 I just like orienting myself 86 they're splitting up families in a slave auction to get rid of these Volkswagen [ __ ] laborers. Um,

one worker while it Yeah. Yeah. I mean, Volkswagen isn't making the gate are making bank. Don't get me wrong here. One worker

somebody. Yeah. Fine. Yeah. Yeah. At least one worker Raul is separated from his brothers. He later told the Washington Post, "I can still see my brothers being put on the back of a truck and taken away from me." Per the Post's reporting, quote, Raul said he spent the next four months captive until a farmer helped him escape. He found his way back home to his brothers who had also managed to flee. But Raul discovered that his younger brother was not the same. Over the years, his brother receded further into his trauma. Today, he no longer speaks. He only nods and sways.

Oh my god. That's great. Good. Good stuff. Um, all worth it for beef killing the rainforest. Um,

did they even get to the cows part of all this? Yeah, I mean they have them. It just they've got cows. It's just not very profitable compared to how much it costs. But again, I don't think I think the the plan the the real reason they're doing this is because it makes it it makes the government more inclined to give VW other things they want. I don't think Volkswagen's primary interest is directly profiting from this.

Right. Right. Um so for decades after the ranch closed its doors, the father continued to collect accounts of former enslaved laborers. Um, he eventually documents 69 alleged victims whose stories range from 1977 to 1987. Uh, here are some relevant examples from the document he puts together. Quote, "We worked Monday to Monday, often without eating." One man said, "They promised to kill us." Uh, another laborer, Jose Dilvia, 29, uh, of Annapolis says, "They stomped on a laborer, broke his teeth, brought him to the hospital, and put him back to work in the jungle." Um in 19 yeah uh three men uh made an account in 1989 after escaping and told Rosende quote they tied up a man and beat him in the forest leaving him naked there. Um another survivor Edivan Das Alenar uh told the priest they have a cave where they kill people and throw the bodies in.

Oh my god. Good stuff. Yeah. Well driving pay for corpses. Yeah, we got a game.

Look, here at Volkswagen, we know that people are concerned about our our history and the slave laborers that that were mass murdered uh in concentration camps in Europe.

And we promise that'll never happen again. We have a cave for the corpses now, you know.

You know, so wine cave bodies. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. So much better than a death camp. I mean, my god, a death cave. Come on.

It's a roof. It's got a roof. It's got a roof. It is a roof. Um, so the father documented everything he could, but again, even after this branch closes, he has very little hope that any punitive action would ever be taken. And it it almost doesn't. It's not until late 2019 that a state prosecutor in Brazil reopened an investigation on the federal slave labor division into what had happened at Volkswagen's ranch. And he engages Rosende who had to spend weeks traveling around rural communities finding witnesses who would be able to come back on the record and talk again about what they'd endured. Right? Cuz they need to have people who are willing to like show up in court and talk about it. A lot of these people have died at this point. This is like a this is a difficult effort for a man who's not young. You know, this priest is not a young man anymore. And he's got to really go around and and find these

people, pull them out of, you know, obscurity so that they can attempt to force some sort of accountability

and they are somewhat successful here. The case does not move rapidly. Again, I said it starts in 2019. Uh and in 2022, they finally wind up in court and a lot of these survivors have a chance to testify. Now, Volkswagen had been in the process. They had just like been negotiating and admitted wrongdoing and like working with the military huna. Um, like this is a thing that had happened not long before that, but they're not willing to admit that they had anything to do with these slave labor plantation or anything to do with like the work of these gate. Um they gave up after months of negotiations with the labor ministry and refused to pay $30 million in reparations demanded by the government for their past collaborations. Um in 2020 the company had signed a doc a conduct adjustment agreement with the public prosecutor's office acknowledging that it had supported the regime in several human rights violations. But

admitting to the enslavement of laborers on their isolated ranch was a bridge too far. The case finally comes to trial in 2025. Right. like there's they're starting there's some testimony and whatnot, but like it it doesn't shake out until this year, right? This is like the fact this is all reaching its conclusion very recently.

The evils are you usually described and they are evils but and often you know there are echoes we're feeling now, but this is this is now.

Yeah, this is right now. This is coming to some kind of conclusion. Wow. Quote from the post. Wow. The first person to testify was Volkswagen's representative, Joseé Tiro. He said that the company didn't monitor human rights as rigidly in those days, but that it had investigated the allegations at the time and didn't identify any irregularity. Then, one by one, the laborers came to the stand. "We were sold," said Rahul Batista Duza. "We slept under a black plastic sheet," said Pedro Vasconos. "They were all armed. We had to work," said Joseé Vanna Nunez.

Finally, Rosende, who'd come from across the country, rose to testify. The priest hadn't slept much the night before and had woken angry. "How could they have permitted this crime?" he vented that he'd vented that morning and continued to have permitted it. The court ultimately ruled against Volkswagen, ordering them to pay 165 million BRL for collective moral damages. Volkswagen still denies any wrongdoing, and last I said, are appealing the case. And for an example of like how like hideously they like company officials have refused to acknowledge any wrongdoing, there's a very good article uh by by DW Deutscheell, which is like a German publication uh by Astrid de Olivera uh Brazilian prosecutors summoned VW over slavery allegations. This is from 2022.

Quote, "The Swiss aronomist and former manager of the cattle farm in Santana de Argua, Friedrich Buger, this is the guy we talked about earlier. This is like the dude that met with Rende when the delegation showed up. Describes the allegations that VW engaged in modern slavery as complete nonsense. As if there were nothing more important today than improving the past. Uh he told a reporter and

yeah, like it's it's it's pretty hideous. Uh he says the responsibility of a company in somewhere uh when there are over a thousand men in one room, things aren't always gentle. That's obvious. Especially in the middle of a jungle.

Oh, no, no, no, no. You were clearing the trees. Yeah, it wasn't in the middle of the jungle. It was a

It was a field. Yeah, it was a [ __ ] It was the It was the jungle, man. Like Yeah. Like, it's it's so [ __ ] up. Like, the this [ __ ] guy, Buger, needs to

I mean, he needs to be locked up in a [ __ ] cage somewhere. I I these are the kind of things that people really need to pay for more often. Like the the fact that that that 2001 law in Brazil where they're like we can take all of your assets if we find you holding slaves. Um like that's a good start, but they need to go like especially Germany needs to go further for guys like this. Um, there's another really infuriating quote from this [ __ ] from a a Washington Post article um that I I just have to read to you. Um,

please uh the brutality that happened, of course, doesn't surprise me at all. The Brazilian is a bad person, he said in the 2017 interview with a German reporter. He blamed the laborers for their own debts and defended the Gateau's alleged use of violence. To keep a crowd under control, they have to show a certain amount of strength. man, not beating the the Nazi al I mean, he's Swiss, but still not beating the Nazi allegations, my man. Like, holy [ __ ] dude.

Wow. Wow. Um, so that's cool, you know, and that's that's more or less where we are. The court ruled against Volkswagen. They are appealing. They have not admitted wrongdoing as of yet. Um, in 2016, as part of their long reconciliation effort in at the urging of the Brazilian state, the car company hired a historian named Christopher Culper to write a report on the company's activities during the dictatorship. And this is, as I said, they're not coping to the slavery. They did admit in 2020 to having worked to like

punish and put in concentration camps and whatnot like labor organiz like they help the Brazilian state prosecute labor organizers. um often viciously and they admitted to that, right? They haven't admitted to this, but as a part of that that other reconciliation effort, they bring in this historian and Copper, he writes a good report. He's always he's not quite willing to say, "Yeah, they definitely enslaved people, but in a more he says that in like a more academic kind of less legally uh actionable term." Quote, Volkswagen strictly monitored operations. Pasture cleaning fencing deforestation all done under slave conditions. Contractors were only paid once the work was in order. The company couldn't not know how laborers were treated. Ignorance is not credible. It's absolutely impossible as the ranch was orderly and efficiently run. Workers were surveiled at all times by armed security, who weren't directly

employed by the automaker, but were following a set of directives established by VW. Managers later talked their way out of trouble by emphasizing they were not responsible for the treatment of laborers employed by the subcontractors, even as they bragged to the media that full-time workers employed directly by VW lived very well by local standards. Copper concluded Volkswagen farm managers were certainly aware of the realities of the rural labor labor market, the exploitative practices of the Gatos and the treatment of the itinerant labor force as secondass. These men got no reliable shelter, no sanitation, no proper medical care. Instead of fixing this, management kept supporting the gate. His ultimate conclusion is that while Volkswagen never gave the orders to enslave or abused workers, it quote took no action to mitigate inhumane conditions and was absolutely aware of how its contractors were performing

their duty. Um, and yeah, that's the story. Wow. So, I guess maybe don't buy a Volkswagen.

Maybe don't buy a Volkswagen. I don't know, man. Again, good luck finding a like buy a used car, I guess. Although like used car dealers are also sketchy in different ways, but

I don't know. There are several ways you can, you know, take out a window here or there.

I I'm not going to tell you the right way to live ethically under capitalism, but uh bad.

Bad Volkswagen bad. Yeah. Wow. This is so like so more recent. Yeah. Then I think my my spine was prepared for

shocking, right? Yeah. Same. Yeah. I I I had this this is a friend of mine who I'm not going to name because they're a friend and I don't name friends on the podcast cuz that's a bad idea.

And you have none. Okay. Yeah. And I have none. No. They just brought this up to me in person like did you know that Brazil had like a slave plantation in the [ __ ] 80s or that Volkswagen had a slave plantation in Brazil in the 80s? And I was like no I didn't know that. That's pretty [ __ ] up. Oh.

Um, and now you know about it. So, great. And now I know about it. And now you all know about it.

Now you all know about it. What do we do with it that you know, now that we know that,

you know, that guy we kept talking about? That Swiss dude, he should probably get charged with something.

I don't know. Cuz he's still around, right? He's still around. Last I checked. I don't know. Maybe he died recently, but he was around like 2022, I think.

Hey. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know, sir. H yeah, someone go yell at him or something at least. [ __ ] I don't know. I don't know how to fix this.

Yeah, I guess that's plug anything. Yeah. Oh man. Well, yes, this this was lovely. Uh I learned unfortunately so much about our current state of the world. Um, and uh, yeah, uh, my other show, Amy's Dad at Dreamhouse, it's on Nebula. Uh, because yeah, it also deals with topics. I would say probably nothing as as as grandiose as uh current uh you know labor infractions. Um but it does deal with misogyny, uh depression, um getting misdiagnosed, friend breakups, uh you know, lesser evils in the in the grand scale of things. But uh yeah, you can hop over there, check it out. Uh have a beautiful, wonderful time. I have some wonderful guests, some wonderful guests that have been on this podcast.

Jing Loftess. Um, front of the pod and yeah, YouTube essays at my name, one about propaganda, uh, coming out soon.

Excellent. And that's it, man. Yeah, I think I'm just going to eat chocolate the maybe I will eat ethical chocolate the rest of the entire day, I think, is what I'm be doing. Yeah.

Yeah. I will say, folks, maybe avoid Heribo. Uh, if you don't know, they they've got a pretty uh rough uh human rights the the the gummy bear company. Not a not a great tone earlier. Yeah, that was a Okay.

No, that's that's not a joke. They allegedly still rely on slave labor to harvest carnoba wax. Yeah, there's a documentary released in 2017 which showed that Brazilian carnaba pickers live in uh like horrific conditions without access to like clean food or water and receive I think it's like maybe $12 a day and and I think it's like a similar sort of like debt pinage system in a lot of cases. It's maybe not quite as bad as it used to be, but it's it's pretty ugly.

Sounds bad. Sounds bad. Put those gummy bears the [ __ ] down. It's gotten better, but just don't get it from Haribo. I don't know. I don't know where you should get your gummy bears, folks. Um,

just look into it. Haribo, you know. Yeah. I don't know. Just lick sugar from a bag.

That's probably eical bag. Yeah. All right. Well, thanks, Maggie. Bye. Bye everybody.

Questions about this episode

Who speaks in "Part Two: That Time Volkswagen Operated a Slave Plantation in Brazil | BEHIND THE BASTARDS"?

Robert Evans (Host), Maggie Mae Fish (Guest), Ricardo Rosende (Guest), Friedrich Wilhelm Schultzwank (Guest), Chico (Guest).

What is "Part Two: That Time Volkswagen Operated a Slave Plantation in Brazil | BEHIND THE BASTARDS" about?

The content explores Volkswagen's controversial history of operating a slave plantation in Brazil, delving into the ethical implications and historical context surrounding this dark chapter of the company's past. It highlights the ongoing discourse around corporate accountability and the lasting impact of such practices on communities and societies.

What is mentioned in this Behind the Bastards episode?

14 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Ricardo Rosende, Edivon Allen Carrar, Expedito Batista, Christopher Culper, Friedrich Wilhelm Schultzwank, Arnaldo Filo. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "Part Two: That Time Volkswagen Operated a Slave Plantation in Brazil | BEHIND THE BASTARDS"?

The episode runs 52 min; the transcript is about 9,705 words in 153 timestamped sections.

More from Behind the Bastards

About this transcript: the episode's spoken words as captioned on YouTube, split into timestamped sections. Reclip.Me locates every person, work and idea in the text, keeps the time it is first named, and quotes the words around it verbatim. Last updated January 24, 2026.