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Moro considered releasing Odebrecht's bribes confession in Venezuela to harm president Maduro

Tuesday, July 9th 2019 - 09:59 UTC
Full article 24 comments
The Intercept published chats in which Moro considers using information gathered about Odebrecht during the Car Wash investigation against socialist leader Maduro The Intercept published chats in which Moro considers using information gathered about Odebrecht during the Car Wash investigation against socialist leader Maduro
“Maybe we should reveal Odebrecht's confessions about bribes in Venezuela?” Moro said to chief prosecutor Deltan Dallagnol via encrypted Telegram messaging “Maybe we should reveal Odebrecht's confessions about bribes in Venezuela?” Moro said to chief prosecutor Deltan Dallagnol via encrypted Telegram messaging

Brazilian justice minister Sergio Moro considered releasing construction giant Odebrecht's confession to paying bribes in Venezuela to harm the country's president Nicolas Maduro, The Intercept investigative website reported on Sunday.

The report came after The Intercept last month began publishing excerpts from leaked chats with Moro, causing a scandal for the former anti-corruption judge who became attorney general under far-right president Jair Bolsonaro.

The Intercept's most explosive report purportedly showed Moro conspiring with prosecutors in a sprawling corruption probe known as Car Wash to keep popular ex-president Lula da Silva out of the 2018 presidential race.

On Sunday, The Intercept published chats in which Moro considers whether to use information gathered about Odebrecht during the Car Wash investigation against socialist leader Maduro, who has presided over a political and humanitarian crisis in Venezuela.

“Maybe we should reveal Odebrecht's confessions about bribes in Venezuela?” Moro said to chief prosecutor Deltan Dallagnol via the encrypted Telegram messaging app in August 2017.

Earlier in the conversation, Dallagnol had told Moro, ”There will be criticism and a price (to be paid), but it's worth exposing oneself to help the Venezuelans.“

It remains unclear if the confessions were ever leaked, but Odebrecht has admitted to paying bribes across Latin America, including US$ 98 million in Venezuela -- its biggest payoff outside Brazil.

In a statement, the prosecutor's office in the city of Curitiba, which handled some of the most publicized aspects of the probe, rejected The Intercept's report.

The office said it didn't recognize ”the messages attributed to its members in recent weeks. The origin and veracity of the messages, obtained via cybercriminals, cannot be confirmed.”

The corruption scandal surrounding Odebrecht, Latin America's biggest construction firm, has stretched across a dozen countries in Latin America and two in Africa, with the company implicated in handing out cash to win lucrative public contracts.

The revelations regarding Moro have led to calls for his resignation along with demonstrations in support of the justice minister.

Categories: Politics, Brazil, Venezuela.

Top Comments

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  • imoyaro

    Good idea...

    Jul 09th, 2019 - 10:04 am 0
  • Enrique Massot

    JB

    These days it looks like judge Sergio Moro has more pressing issues than Venezuela.

    JB may believe MP readers are getting little information about what's going on in the world.

    He may very well one of the last ones still attempting to cover up for this deeply in-trouble judge. To do that, he uses an old and proven tactic: Just shoot the messenger.

    So JB directs his fire to Glenn Greenwald -- the journalist who first broke the news about Moro's secret communications with prosecutors with the goal of jailing political inconvenient individuals.

    In his rabid anti-left, anti-PT, anti-Intercept tirade, JB forgets to mention the latest news:

    A partnership has been formed between The Intercept and Brazil's largest newspaper the Folha de São Paulo to jointly report on the Moro affair from now on.

    Brazil's largest weekly magazine, centre-right Veja, which for a long time published sympathetic stories about Moro, has also partnered with The Intercept and will be publishing Glenn Greenwald's material as well.

    Right-wing journalist Reinaldo Azevedo of the Band News radio network has also joined the publication partnership.

    Sorry, JB. Nice try though. Unfortunately, Moro is already a politically dead man walking and no amount of semantics or anti-left ramblings can save him.

    Jul 09th, 2019 - 06:47 pm 0
  • Enrique Massot

    @imoyaro

    Imoyaro appears to believe in the magic power of adjectives:

    “Kamerad/Komrade,” “fellow murderous bus driver Maduro,” “Bolivarian Narcokleptocracy” “criminal entity known as Odebretch.” Who is to argue against these powerful arguments?

    As for making public any crimes or offences, I am all for justice (real justice). It's just that, in light of the new revelations about Sergio Moro, any information coming his way must be carefully weighed, since the man has, at the very least, become suspicious in his dealings as judge.

    However, those considerations should be of little concern to imoyaro, who has already gone ahead and designated the guilty parties. Otherwise, he seems totally unconcerned by Moro's partiality.

    But who needs judges when you have imoyaro, who already knows everything that is to know about the guilty parties?

    Jul 10th, 2019 - 04:58 am 0
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