MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Brazil's Odebrecht in nine years paid out bribes equivalent to US$ 3.3 billion

The US$3.3 billion figure and related annual tallies as laid out in the spreadsheet were reported by G1 news site of the Globo media group and Estado de S. Paulo

Odebrecht SA , the Brazilian engineering company at the center of a historic corruption scandal, paid about US$3.3 billion in bribes over a nine-year period that ran through 2014, according to testimony cited by local media in Sao Paulo.

 Through a department specifically established to pay politicians and other recipients for public works contracts, Odebrecht paid as much as US$730 million annually in both 2012 and 2013, the years when bribe payments peaked, according to a spreadsheet that a former executive reportedly gave investigators as part of a plea deal.

The US$3.3 billion figure and related annual tallies as laid out in the spreadsheet were reported by the G1 news site of the Globo media group and Estado de S. Paulo, a leading newspaper.

A trove of plea deal testimony unsealed this week by a Supreme Court justice is shedding light on how Odebrecht, once Latin America's most successful engineering firm, routinely paid officials in Brazil and other countries in exchange for winning contracts.

The testimony was unsealed as the justice, Edson Fachin, authorized investigations of eight government ministers, 12 governors and dozens of federal lawmakers implicated in the scandal, uncovered three years ago because of a kickback investigation at the state-run oil company Petrobras.

Odebrecht, whose former chief executive has been jailed since 2015 in connection with the probe, negotiated a far-reaching plea agreement with Brazilian investigators last year, leading to testimony by about 80 company executives and employees.

Along with an affiliate, Odebrecht also agreed last year to pay at least US$3.5 billion to U.S. and Swiss investigators for international charges related to the scandal.

Estado de S. Paulo also reported that Brazilian authorities were investigating whether any of the foreign kickbacks the company has already admitted to violated Brazilian law. The company made those payments in countries including Mexico, Ecuador, Peru and Angola.