After defaults in Mozambique, Venezuela, and Cuba the Brazilian government froze credit lines for new exports, a measure that will affect mostly small and medium-sized businesses. The Brazilian Treasury Department will spend US$ 6 million to reimburse BNDES (National Bank For Economic and Social Development) for Cuba's default
Peruvian President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski and one of his leading political rivals appeared on Thursday before prosecutors investigating payments to politicians by Brazilian construction company Odebrecht. Kuczynski and ex congresswoman Keiko Fujimori are being investigated by anti-corruption prosecutors in separate probes. Both have denied wrongdoing.
Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto faces a tough choice on whether to pursue a graft probe involving a prominent ally and Brazilian construction firm Odebrecht.
A prosecutor in Peru is seeking up to 18 months in jail for former president Ollanta Humala and his wife Nadine Heredia to keep them from fleeing the country while money laundering charges are prepared against them, according to a request made public on Tuesday.
A multilateral group of officials will jointly investigate the extent of corruption stemming from the Odebrecht bribery case. Following a meeting on February 16, executives from the public prosecution offices of Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Mexico, Panama, Peru, Portugal and Venezuela agreed to work together to fully investigate bribes alleged to have been paid to high-ranking officials across Latin America and beyond.
The Colombian National Infrastructure Agency (ANI) has cancelled a US$1.89 billion highway construction contract with Odebrecht. The Brazilian contractor is the majority partner in a consortium that won the 25-year public private partnership (PPP) contract in 2010.
A Brazilian judge reinstated the nomination of a top ally of President Michel Temer to a ministerial post, but ruled he could not receive the legal protections other high-ranking politicians enjoy.
The offices of Mossack Fonseca, the law firm at the centre of the Panama Papers leak, were raided on 9 February as part of an ongoing investigation into Brazil's biggest corruption scandal, the so called Operation Carwash (Lava Jato in Portuguese) involving the state-run oil company Petrobras.
Brazil's Supreme Court named a new justice on Thursday to oversee cases against politicians caught in a giant corruption probe after the previous judicial point man was killed in an airplane crash.
Brazil's attorney general on Friday offered a joking retort to former President Lula da Silva's remark that the corruption allegations he faces are due to a diabolical pact among different institutions, saying he is not a religious person. What I can say is that I'm not religious, Rodrigo Janot joked to reporters when asked about Lula's comments. Janot, who gave a press conference to review anti-corruption investigations this year, added that Lula was free to express his opinion.