A mother’s hope for her son’s first birthday meal came crashing down when she discovered that the lamb she had bought online was actually another animal. When you open the package, he couldn’t believe it. It happened in Uruguay, Montevideoand ended in a police report.
Gabriela He reported that he bought a supposed lamb weighing more than 12 kilos on social media, but upon receiving the order he immediately suspected that it was another animal. possibly a dog.
In dialogue with Underlinedthe woman said that she paid $2,633 Uruguayan pesos (almost 100 thousand Argentine pesos) for the piece he had found through publications on networks. The operation, he explained, was carried out with sellers who do not have a physical location and who only accept cash.
According to his testimony, the warning sign appeared as soon as he had the package in his hands. “I was with my mother-in-law. The smell was overwhelming.«said the woman when she received the purchase. The surprise quickly turned into indignation: “This is not a lamb nor a piglet.”.
The suspicion: “They look like human arms”
Gabriela described that the appearance of the animal did not match what she expected to cook. “They look like human arms”he stated. From that impression, he maintained that he began to believe that it was a dog.
With suspicion in place, he decided to contact the sellers and tell them that the product did not correspond to a lamb.
He warned them that he had a recording of the moment the order was delivered and insisted that it was another animal.
The response, according to his version, was as striking as the episode: they told him that they would pick it up days later and suggested that he keep it in the freezer until then. For Gabriela, this indication reinforced the feeling that something irregular was being attempted to be covered up.
Organisms aware and DNA testing
The case escalated and already involves several institutions. The National Meat Institute (INAC), the National Institute of Animal Welfare (INBA) and the Municipality of Montevideo (IM) are aware of the situation and performed DNA on the animal to determine precisely what species it is.
Gabriela also stated that a veterinarian who analyzed the body told her that it was not a lamb and that he found similarities with the corpse of a dog. With that support, The woman filed a complaint with the police.
While the results of the genetic analysis are awaited, the episode reopens a sensitive controversy: the purchase of food through social networks, without clear controls and outside authorized circuits, can lead to fraud, health risks and crimes that are difficult to trace. In this case, a family celebration was put on hold waiting for a scientific answer to confirm the most disturbing suspicion.
