Jorge Barrera
speaker
197 appearances
4 recordings
1 series
first heard Nov 2024
last heard Dec 2024
Jorge Barrera’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
Trend
recordings per month · last 12 monthsNo recordings in the last 12 months.Older appearances are listed below; set an alert to hear about the next one.
Appearances
But it does over and over again. People turning to Acumetrix and then later finding out the person named as the father is wrong. The same pattern for years. In the end, Sarah's lawsuit didn't seem to make much of a dent in Acumetric's business. So it continued, relatively unfazed, branching out into different DNA markets, both overseas and at home, including testing for indigenous ancestry.
And that's when I got the call that pulled me onto Acumetric's trail.
The first time I hear the name Acumetrix is while listening to this story about the woman who believed she was Beothuk. It catches my attention because at the time I'd been reporting on stories about pretendians or people pretending to be indigenous. And this Beothuk story has some of those same hallmarks.
Shortly after it airs, I get a tip from ex-members of a Quebec group that calls itself the Confederation of Aboriginal People of Canada. They tell me the group is also using Acumetrix for Indigenous Ancestry testing, and there's something off about it.
The Confederation sells membership cards that the group claims give Indigenous status, granting cardholders the right to hunt, fish, and buy cars tax-free. But to get a card, you need to prove you're Indigenous. And one of the ways to do that? A DNA test, which is done by Acumetrix, at a cost of $250 a pop. The company stands to make an awful lot of money.
So I start making calls.
Hi, my name is Jorge Barrera.
But they don't want to talk. They bounce me to the leader of the Confederation of Aboriginal People.
Okay. And what's his name again?
It's Ashley pronounced Carl.
So I make that call.
Hello, Grand Chief Carl. My name is Jorge Barrera. I'm a reporter with CBC. And the reason I'm calling is it's about this issue of DNA tests with Viaguard Acumetrix.
Do you trust their results?
But some of Carl's ex-members, they're not so sure.
Daniel Brabant is a former member of the Confederation. He heard rumors that there's something funny going on with the Acumetrix indigenous DNA test. Things like multiple people getting eerily identical ancestry results. So he turns to his dog, a French poodle named Molly.
He swabs Molly the poodle, then he puts the swab in a plastic bag, packs it up in a box and sends it off to be tested by Acumetrix.
Yep, according to Acumetrix results, Molly the poodle has Indigenous ancestry. So I call Acumetrix back.
And I get the runaround again.
Okay, well, I mean, the issue is that two people separately submitted DNA samples to Viagard directly, and they received results that they had Native American ancestry, but they actually sent DNA samples from their dogs. So I need to speak with Mr. Tenenbaum about this because he's the company owner, right?
CBC News reporting Torpedo's Grand Chief Carl's group. He's eventually charged with fraud for selling those fake Indigenous status cards. Around the same time, he was also convicted for sex crimes involving a minor. But that case is unrelated to this DNA testing investigation. Carl is still facing trial on the fraud charges.
Showing 101–120 of 197 · page 6 of 10
← Previous
Next →