MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Ex Odebrecht corrupt VP found dead in Rio de Janeiro

The news of Valladares' death was not released until late on Wednesday.

Former Odebrecht Vicepresident Henrique Valladares, one of the main informants in the megacorruption scandal which links the Brazilian building firm with bribes involving top tier officials from governments all over Latin America, has been found lifeless in his Rio de Janeiro flat, it was reported. The cause of death is yet to be determined.

 Valladares' body was found Tuesday in his apartment in the Leblon district in southern Rio de Janeiro, but the news of his death was not released until late on Wednesday.

The State Civil Police reported that the body was transferred to the Legal Medical Institute, where he was subjected to an autopsy which produced no conclusive evidence as to the reasons for his death, due to which the case has been labeled as one of for “unspecified causes,” pending laboratory tests.

Valladares had agreed to confess to his crimes and signal his accomplices in exchange for a reduction in his sentence and other judicial benefits.

Among his revelations was the alleged 12.5 million dollar donation to the presidential campaign of then Senator Aécio Neves in 2014, when he lost to Dilma Rousseff.

Valladares also pointed at Rousseff's Minister of Mines and Energy Edison Lobao for accepting bribes in exchange for favouring the company in public contracts in the energy area.

The deceased also admitted to paying bribes to indigenous groups to avoid protests against the construction of power plants in the Amazon area and trade unionists to avert environment-concerned demonstrations.

Valladares' death adds to that of former Peruvian President Alan García, who committed suicide just before being arrested in Lima, also for his alleged illegal doings in Odebrecht operations in that country. In Colombia, the controller of the Ruta del Sol II Jorge Pizano, also under investigation in a dossier involving Odebrecht, died at his home of a heart attack and the authorities found a bottle of flavoured water containing cyanide.