Brazil's Dilma Rousseff tried to get ahead of the storm of scandal bearing down on her presidency on Wednesday, unveiling a raft of anti-corruption measures she hopes will appease her critics.
Brazil's Supreme Court late Friday approved an investigation of dozens of top politicians, including a former president and leaders of congress, for alleged connections to what they call the biggest graft scheme ever uncovered in the country which has the largest economy in Latin America.
The corruption scheme in Brazil's leading corporation Petrobras could exceed 28 billion dollars, making it the largest corruption scandal that the country has ever seen. The development was reported through an interview by Reuters of Brazilian police officer, Erika Marena, investigating the corruption probe.
Brazilian prosecutors formally charged executives from six of the country's largest engineering firms with forming a cartel to funnel kickbacks from state-run oil firm Petrobras to the ruling political party and its allies.
Brazil’s state-run oil firm Petrobras said on Monday it had received a subpoena from the US Securities and Exchange Commission asking for documents relating to an investigation it is pursuing. The SEC investigation is the latest in a multi-layered probe into Petrobras which is spreading beyond Brazil’s borders.
The lawyer of the Brazilian lobbyist Fernando Baiano, who was finally arrested in an ongoing investigation into corruption at state oil company Petrobras, has said that “no public work is done in Brazil without a bribe” and that the people who deny allegation of corruption “ignore the country’s history.”
Five people accused in a corruption scandal at Brazil's state oil giant Petrobras have agreed to return 165 million dollars to the public purse in plea bargains with prosecutors, a newspaper reported Tuesday.
Brazil's President Dilma Rousseff said investigations into corruption at the state-owned oil company, Petrobras, could change the country forever. This was the first time she spoke since the arrest on Friday of 23 people suspected of corruption and money-laundering.
Brazilian police arrested a former Petrobras executive on Friday, sending the state-run oil company's shares and bonds down after a widening corruption scandal forced it to delay the release of its financial results.
Brazilian President and candidate for reelection Dilma Rousseff admitted that funds were illegally diverted at the state-run oil firm Petrobras, allegedly to benefit political parties allied with the government, and she promised to seek reimbursement of that money.