Brazilian prosecutors have started a new investigation into the eldest son of President Jair Bolsonaro over suspicion he embezzled public money by hiring “ghost employees”, officials said.
Swiss investigators have executed search warrants at addresses linked to Vitol and Trafigura, their counterparts in Brazil said on Thursday, as a sprawling probe into the global commodity trading industry intensifies.
Brazilian police conducted raids on Wednesday in a new phase of the “Car Wash” corruption investigation, targeting alleged bribery by Italo-Argentine group Techint to secure contracts from state-run oil firm Petrobras.
Brazilian police launched a corruption probe this week into the head of President Jair Bolsonaro’s right-wing Social Liberal Party (PSL) Luciano Bivar, a police source revealed, adding to tensions within the fractious governing coalition.
Eike Batista, formerly Brazil’s richest man, was sentenced to an additional eight years and seven months of prison time this week for insider trading. Batista, 62, had already been convicted for paying US$ 16.6m to get government contracts as part of a sprawling corruption probe known as Carwash and sentenced to 30 years, which he is serving under house arrest.
Brazil former president, Michel Temer, described for the first time the dismissal of his predecessor Dilma Rousseff as a “coup”, as the left marks the political trial that removed the ex-president of the Workers Party from power.
Peru's Supreme Court halved the pre-trial detention of Keiko Fujimori, paving the way for the opposition leader to leave jail in April of next year. Fujimori, 44, was ordered held for 36 months last October in a corruption case linked to Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht.
The former first lady of Honduras Rosa Elena Bonilla, wife of ex-president Porfirio Lobo, was sentenced on Wednesday to 58 years in jail on charges of fraud and undue appropriation of funds, a spokesman for the nation's highest court said.
Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said the public should have the right to choose whether ex-presidents should face trial once a bill has passed Congress making it easier to hold referendums.
Brazil's federal police arrested four people for allegedly hacking the phone of Justice Minister Sérgio Moro, a key member of far-right President Jair Bolsonaro's Cabinet who had previously been a renowned anti-corruption judge.