Prevention Plan and Resolution of Livestock Stealing Cases in Buenos Aires Province, Argentina

GIOVAMBATTISTA,G.; ROGBERG-MUÑOZ, A; DIAZ, S.; RIPOLI, M.V.; LIRON, J.P.; KIENAST, M.E.; VILLEGAS CASTAGNASSO, E.; IT, V; CORVA S; ESPINOSA,N; BARRIENTOS,L; FRANCISCO, E.; DE GIUSTI A.; PESADP P.; BERTONE R.; CHICHIZOLA F.; IGLESIAS M.; ALBANESI M.B.; GALDAMEZ N.; PERAL-GARCIA, P

Porto Seguro, Brasil

Congreso; 30th International Conference on Animal Genetics; 2006

International Society of Animal Genetics

Livestock robbery is a frequent illegality in Argentina that cause lost of several millions a years and is a serious risk to the public and animals health. To prevent and solve this type of illegal action, we designed and implemented the official plan “Prevention and Resolution of Livestock Stealing Cases in Buenos Aires Province”. This project included different stages: (i) solving court cases using genetic information; (ii) genetic characterization of the bovine and equine population bred in the Pampa region; (iii) creation of a biological samples reservoir that could be used as reference samples in future robbery; (iv) A database with DNA sample information was created, and a sample management and analysis system is under development. Biological samples (N=227) from 84 court caseworks of livestock illegal hunting (78 cases) or robbery (4 cases) were analyzed. The remaining cases (N=2) corresponded with specific specie identification of the evidence samples. Eleven STRs were used for individual identification, while the mitochondrial cytochrome b was genotyped for specie identification. Match probabilities between evidence and reference samples were calculated from different cattle breed databases from the Buenos Aires Province. Because of the relatively high grade of putrefaction of the forensic biological materials, we can not obtained good quality DNA in 16 caseworks. Within the remaining samples, the number of successfully genotyping locus by sample varied from 4 to 11. In 16 caseworks, the genotypes of evidence and reference did not matched, while in 50 caseworks, the evidence profile match with the reference genotypes. In those cases, the likelihood ratio ranged from 68,000 to 1.2 x 1013. In conclusion, herein we described a plan where DNA profiling was used as evidence for the detection of cattle and equine illegal hunting or robbery, supporting the prosecutor accusation in court.