Arrest an ex-manager of a subsidiary of the Brazilian Petrobras accused of bribes

A former manager of Transpetro, one of the subsidiaries of the Brazilian oil company Petrobras, was arrested today, accused of having demanded bribes for 7 million reais (about 2.1 million reais). dollars) in exchange for illegally awarding millionaire contracts of the company to an engineering firm.

Rio de Janeiro, Nov 21 (EFE) .- A former manager of Transpetro, one of the subsidiaries of the Brazilian oil company Petrobras, was arrested today, accused of having demanded bribes for 7 million euros. real (about 2.1 million dollars) in exchange for illegally awarding millionaire contracts of the company to an engineering firm.

This is José Antonio de Jesús, manager of Transpetro during the governments of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (2003-2010) and Dilma Rousseff (2011-2016) and who is accused of having charged the bribes on behalf of the then ruling Partido de Workers (PT).

The former senior official was arrested at his residence in Camaçari, a city in the state of Bahia (northeast Brazil), in development of the forty-seventh stage of the operation known as Lava Jato, which investigates a gigantic corruption plot that diverted resources from Petrobras during the PT governments.

Lava Jato, launched more ago Three years ago, it is the largest operation to combat corruption in the history of Brazil and has sent to prison dozens of businessmen, politicians and public officials accused of diverting resources of the largest company in the country.

The operation uncovered a gigantic corruption network protected by leaders of several parties that illegally awarded contracts for millionaire works in Petrobras to construction companies that paid bribes to employees of the state and the politicians who supported the corruption.

In the operation of this Tuesday the Federal Police complied, in addition to the mandate of provisional arrest against De Jesus, four orders to forcibly bring accused to testify before police stations and eight orders of search for evidence in residences and offices of the alleged cases involved in the states of Bahia, Sao Paulo, Sergipe and Santa Catarina.

According to the Office of the Prosecutor, the ex-manager of Transpetro and some of their relatives negotiated illegal pacts to receive bribes from an engineering company interested in contracts with the Petrobras subsidiary.

agreed values, according to the accusation, were paid monthly for the benefit of the PT between September 2009 and March 2014 through deposits in bank accounts of family members of the Former investigator.

"The resources were transferred from the bank account of the engineering company to the bank account of the company of the son of the ex-manager of Transpetro without any contract or document that justifies the payment, "explained prosecutor Jesura Burmann Viecili, one of those responsible for the investigation.

The plot was discovered thanks to the fact that the companies that paid the bribes reached an agreement with the prosecution to cooperate with the investigations in exchange for judicial benefits.

According to the complaint, De Jesus demanded initially bribes equivalent to 1% of each of the contracts awarded but finally agreed to receive a commission of 0.5%.

According to a statement from the Federal Police, Those involved in illegal operations will be accused of corruption and money laundering crimes, among others.