Black Cube in Uruguay

Reported Black Cube work for the Huts family of Katoen Natie in Uruguay, 2021–2024

Black Cube in Uruguay
Type	Reported commercial and political intelligence operation
Date	First half of 2021 – 2024 (as reported)
Location	Mechelen, Belgium (2021 briefing); Montevideo, Uruguay
Participants	Black Cube
Organisers	Client, according to Intelligence Online: the Huts family (Ferdinand Huts and Karl Huts) of Katoen Natie
Victims	Reported targets: executives of the rival port operator Montecon (2021); Yamandú Orsi's circle and the Broad Front (2024)
Inquiry status	No official inquiry reported. The account rests on Intelligence Online (15 July 2026) and anonymous sources
Outcome	No scandal emerged; Orsi won the 2024 run-off. Black Cube denied conducting political investigations in Uruguay

Black Cube in Uruguay refers to reported work by the Israeli private intelligence firm Black Cube for the Belgian Huts family, owners of the logistics group Katoen Natie, between 2021 and 2024. According to Intelligence Online, the job began against a rival operator in the port of Montevideo and later turned to the opposition Broad Front before the 2024 presidential election.

The account was published by Intelligence Online on 15 July 2026 as the first part of a three-part series on Black Cube's political work. It named the client as the Huts family, owners of Katoen Natie. It rests on "information gathered by Intelligence Online" and on anonymous sources. The two most specific claims, hidden cameras in 2021 and attempts to record Broad Front members in 2024, each come from a single unnamed "source familiar with the operation". No court, regulator or official body has confirmed either. Black Cube denied conducting political investigations in Uruguay.

The same article reported a second Latin American job, for the former Paraguayan president Horacio Cartes. That case is covered on Black Cube in Paraguay.

Background: the Montevideo terminal

Katoen Natie, an Antwerp-based logistics group owned by the Huts family, has operated in Uruguay since the 1990s and holds the licence for the largest terminal in the port of Montevideo. Through its subsidiary Nelsury S.A., the group holds the 80 per cent Series A shareholding in Terminal Cuenca del Plata (TCP), the company that runs the specialised container terminal; the port authority holds the remaining 20 per cent.

On 25 February 2021 the government of Luis Lacalle Pou agreed with the Katoen Natie companies to extend the concession by 50 years, to 2081. The Ministry of Transport and Public Works said Katoen Natie would invest about US$450 million and that the deal headed off a US$1.5 billion claim the company had threatened to bring against the state. Intelligence Online described Ferdinand Huts, "one of Belgium's richest men", as having "maintained particularly good relations" with Lacalle Pou. The extension "triggered a wave of opposition", including from the Broad Front, which challenged its legality. In March 2022 the Broad Front senators Mario Bergara and Charles Carrera ratified a criminal complaint with prosecutors over the agreement.

The rival operator Montecon, which works mainly from the port's public berths, also challenged the arrangement. In February 2026 Uruguay's administrative court, the TCA, upheld most of the decrees behind the deal, including the extension to 2081, but annulled a clause that barred the state from licensing competing container terminals until then.

The Montecon phase (2021)

According to a source familiar with the operations cited by Intelligence Online, the Huts family's relationship with Black Cube went back to at least the first half of 2021. At that time a member of the family (the article does not make clear which) briefed a group of operatives gathered in Mechelen, Belgium, about the threat posed by Montecon. Intelligence Online said Montecon was "owned through Canadian and Chilean partners", operated a separate section of the port, and was "benefiting from the fury" around the licence extension. It said Huts wanted leverage over the rival firm in case his position weakened further.

A source familiar with the 2021 operation told Intelligence Online that Black Cube "helped set up hidden cameras to film Montecon executives in Montevideo". This is a single anonymous source. The article said it was not clear what information was useful to the client, or whether Black Cube learned in advance that Montecon's shareholders were preparing an arbitration claim against Uruguay.

The ICSID claims

In April 2024 Neltume Ports, the Chile-based majority shareholder in Montecon, began proceedings against Uruguay at the World Bank's International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), seeking about US$600 million over the port arrangements. A second shareholder, ATCO, brought a separate claim.

Intelligence Online wrote in July 2026 that the $600 million case "continues". That is now out of date. In September 2026, Container News reported, Neltume had "irrevocably withdrawn its claims" under an agreement with the government; Uruguay paid no compensation and accepted no liability. The ATCO arbitration remained outstanding, and the government said it expected it to be resolved in a similar way.

The Broad Front phase (2024)

Constitutional limits on consecutive terms meant Luis Lacalle Pou could not stand in the 2024 election. The governing coalition nominated his former chief of staff Álvaro Delgado, of the centre-right National Party, against the Broad Front candidate Yamandú Orsi. Intelligence Online reported that Karl Huts, son and business partner of Ferdinand Huts, feared the country's business-friendly policies might change, and that the family "enlisted" Black Cube "to gain information that could be leveraged about Orsi's inner circle and his political associates".

A source familiar with the operation said the firm "sought to obtain evidence of illegal financing by Broad Front, including by recording conversations with party members". This rests on a single anonymous source, and the article does not say that any recording was made. Intelligence Online reported that while "false claims spread widely during the campaign, no scandals emerged to suggest Black Cube's probing had paid off". Orsi won the run-off with 49.8 per cent of the vote.

Black Cube's response

Intelligence Online sent Black Cube a list of questions about its work for the Huts family and its activity in Uruguay and Paraguay. The firm replied through an English law firm, which cited client confidentiality and "denied Black Cube has conducted political investigations in either jurisdiction". No response from Katoen Natie or the Huts family is reported in the article.

Halevi's 2019 statement

In November 2018 the former Mossad director Efraim Halevi joined Black Cube to head a client-screening committee. In June 2019 he told the Wall Street Journal that the Romania job against Laura Codruța Kövesi had been the firm's only politically motivated client, and that it no longer did such work. The year 2016 comes from Intelligence Online's summary, not from Halevi's published words: it wrote that Halevy, "who then sat on the firm's board of directors", said Black Cube "had stopped doing 'politically directed' work for 'politically motivated' clients in 2016, after a negative experience on a case in Romania".

Intelligence Online argued that the Uruguay work "appeared to disregard" that commitment. In its account, an assignment that began as a business dispute "had drifted into a political case, seemingly without anyone on Black Cube's board noticing". See Black Cube in Romania for the 2016 case.

A separate case: Vertical Skies

A different surveillance case arose from the same port dispute and is not connected to Black Cube in any source. In November 2022 la diaria reported on WhatsApp chats recovered from the phone of Alejandro Astesiano, then head of presidential security. According to the paper, a manager at Vertical Skies, a "security and investigation" firm based in Boca Raton, Florida, asked Astesiano in March 2022 for "files" of personal information on the Broad Front senators Mario Bergara and Charles Carrera. The request came two weeks after the senators ratified their complaint over the Katoen Natie concession. The manager wrote: "Los quieren atar para que retiren la denuncia" ("They want to tie them up so they withdraw the complaint"). Intelligence Online does not mention this case, and nothing in the reporting links Vertical Skies to Black Cube or to the Huts family.

See also

• Black Cube
• Katoen Natie
• Black Cube in Paraguay
• Horacio Cartes
• Efraim Halevi
• B.C. Strategy Ltd
• Black Cube in Romania