🛻Security and prisons· 2020-2026

55 pickups for rural security: the Ayax award

The Interior Ministry bought 55 Toyota Hilux for US$ 1.37 million from the brand's official dealer. Caras y Caretas questioned the procedure and the owner's ties to the then president.

Under debateUnder public debate

Figure published by the sources

US$ 1.376.430 por 55 camionetas Toyota Hilux DX 4x4 diésel, a US$ 25.026 cada una según el portal de Compras Estatales (Licitación Pública 2/2020)

Bodies involved

Ministerio del Interior

What it is

In 2020, during the first months of Luis Lacalle Pou's government, the Interior Ministry resolved Public Tender 2/2020 to acquire up to 60 double-cab 4x2 pickups and up to 20 double-cab 4x4s. According to the record in the state procurement portal, with a resolution dated 8 July 2020, the tender was partially awarded to AYAX S.A. — tax ID 210383480019, Toyota's official dealer in Uruguay — for 55 Toyota Hilux DX 4x4 diesel pickups at US$ 25,026 each, US$ 1,376,430 in total. Bloommy S.A., Darkinel S.A. and Ralitor S.A. also bid and were not awarded. The vehicles went to the National Directorate of Rural Security.

What is questioned

Caras y Caretas reported on 14 August 2020 that item 1 — 60 pickups — had no awardee and that item 2, for 55 units, was awarded to Ayax after the advisory committee found its bid best combined technical proposal, guarantee, delivery and price. The weekly put the price at US$ 27,528.60 per unit, above the US$ 25,026 recorded in the official portal, and noted that Ayax is chaired by Alejandro Curcio, citing an El País chronicle from March 2020 placing him among the president's "longtime friends" present at the inauguration. In May 2026 the same outlet returned to the subject: it held that part of the process ended in a direct purchase by exception after one item received no valid bids, and added that a later purchase by the education authority ANEP in 2023 — 19 Toyota Hilux 4x4 plus maintenance, for more than US$ 611,000 — was observed by the Tribunal de Cuentas, which questioned the scoring system used to evaluate bids and compliance with energy efficiency rules for the state fleet; the award advisory committee defended the choice on the grounds that it was the only valid and admissible offer.

Why it matters to you

Buying pickups for the rural police is a routine and legitimate purchase; what is in dispute is the procedure and the price. With the file public, anyone can check what the State paid per unit and compare it with what other bodies paid for the same model in the same year. That is exactly the scrutiny open data makes possible.

Where it stands

Under debate

There is no record of a criminal complaint or administrative investigation into the Interior Ministry's Public Tender 2/2020, and no irregularity has been established in that purchase. None of the reports contains a response from Ayax or the ministry, and we found no published official rebuttal; the closest thing on record is the award advisory committee's defence. As this file closes (August 2026) the case remains a political and journalistic question, revived by Caras y Caretas in May 2026, with no ruling from oversight bodies on that particular purchase.

The open-data cross-reference

Open this set in the explorer

What the state awarded to the bodies and companies named in this file, according to the official Compras Estatales data. It is a cross-reference for scale, not proof of irregularity: it includes contracts nobody questioned.

How this cross-reference was builtcontracts whose object mentions “camionetas” · everything recorded under 39 buying units of the named bodies (not only this case) · between 2020 and 2026

$ 173.253.741 Awarded (cross-ref)

551Contracts

114Suppliers

Who was paid

Suppliers ranked by amount awarded in the cross-reference. A contract with several suppliers counts in full against each one: this is a ceiling, not a split.

Which body paid

What it bought

Spending by category, from price times quantity of each awarded item, in the contract currency.

Contracts per year

The detail

30 contracts

The largest contracts in the cross-reference, high to low. Tap one for its record and the link to the official purchase.

Amounts in pesos, normalised. Records with impossible quantities are excluded from the total. This case is in the open data: Public Tender 2/2020 appears in the state procurement portal with amounts and bidders. The gap between the portal's unit price (US$ 25,026) and the one published in the press (US$ 27,528.60) is not explained in the sources consulted, and the Tribunal de Cuentas observations cited by Caras y Caretas correspond to a later ANEP purchase, not to this Interior Ministry tender.