In a trial against a Mapuche woman, polo player Hugo Barabucci confessed to acquiring strategic lands in Río Negro with a $2 million "donation" from the Emir of Abu Dhabi. The maneuver circumvents the Land Law, the Border Security Zone, and hands over freshwater sources to a foreign oil power.

The machinery of foreign land grabbing in Patagonia has just suffered an irreversible setback. What for years was denounced as a suspected land grab through shell companies is now a judicial confession. Polo player Hugo Alberto Barabucci admitted before the Río Negro courts that the nearly 20,000 hectares he owns in the Upper Chubut River region were paid for directly by the government of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) .

The incident occurred during a trial for "usurpation" that Barabucci himself initiated against Soledad Cayunao , a member of the Mapuche community Lof Cayunao , who was simply carrying out the ancestral herding of cattle on lands that her community has occupied for generations. The court acquitted Cayunao , but Barabucci 's testimony exposed a scheme of fraud against national sovereignty.

The scheme of dispossession: From Mindlin to the Emir of Abu Dhabi

The money trail exposes an operation designed to evade any control by the Argentine state:

Strategic Territory and "Security Zones"

The lands in question, located on Cerro Carreras , are not vacant lots. They are critical assets for the nation's future.

1.   Freshwater: This includes glaciers, lagoons, and river sources. The Land Law (26.737) explicitly prohibits the sale of land that contains bodies of water of this type.

2.   Border Security: Due to its border location, the law prohibits foreign ownership. Barabucci acts as a "paper owner" for Emirati businessman Mathar Suhail Ali Alyabhouni Aldhaheri , an operative for the Emir of Abu Dhabi.

3.   Protected Natural Area: Despite being an "intangible" zone, Emirati money financed the construction of 500 square meter mansions, the diversion of watercourses and the creation of artificial lagoons under the complacent gaze of the provincial government.

The Emir in his "Parallel State"

The gravity of the accusation escalates with the revelation that Emir Mohammed bin Zayed , president of the UAE, used these lands as a strategic refuge on February 28th, when political and military tensions in the Middle East escalated into an attack by Israel and the US on Iran. On that day, the head of the absolute monarchy landed in Bariloche with a fleet of five aircraft (including a Boeing 787 and a cargo Galaxy). While official documents state that the land belongs to an Argentine polo player, the reality shows one of the world's most powerful regimes operating in Río Negro province as if it were their own.

Criminalization of ancestral identity

The trial against Soledad Cayunao is the visible face of territorial violence. Represented by the Sarmiento law firm—linked to the anti-Mapuche organization Consenso Patagonia and the interests of Joe Lewis —the prosecution attempted to imprison a peasant mother to protect an illegal foreign enclave.

Cayunao 's acquittal is a moral victory, but Barabucci 's confession now opens a major legal battle. Defense lawyers will request the complete annulment of the land purchases due to fraud against the Land Law and violation of sovereignty in the border zone.

The Barabucci case is obscene proof of foreign ownership through front men . This isn't about investments; it's about the transfer of water and territorial sovereignty to corporations that now decide what happens on Argentine soil, something the State itself has relinquished control over.