Scandal-ridden Brazil construction giant Odebrecht, which has admitted to spending nearly US$ 800 million to bribe officials across Latin America to win contracts, filed for bankruptcy protection on Monday, judicial sources said.
Mexico will launch a criminal probe into Brazilian construction conglomerate Odebrecht SA within 60 days, Attorney General Alejandro Gertz Manero said on Monday.
Ecuadorean President Lenin Moreno stripped his vice president of his authority Thursday over corruption allegations that emerged amid a battle for power within their ruling leftist coalition. In a signed decree, Moreno said he was withdrawing all the tasks that had been assigned to Vice President Jorge Glas since both took office in May, which included overseeing a production council and earthquake reconstruction.
J&F Investimentos, controlling shareholder of the world's largest meatpacker JBS SA,, agreed to pay a record-setting 10.3 billion real (US$3.2 billion) fine for its role in corruption scandals that threaten to topple President Michel Temer. The settlement meant Brazil's sweeping graft investigations have now led to the world's two biggest leniency fines ever levied, Brazilian prosecutors said.
The former CEO of the huge Brazilian builder at the center of the world's biggest corruption scandal spoke frankly about the billions in bribes and illegal financing that the Odebrecht company put into the pockets and campaign coffers of politicians and public officials.
A United States judge on Monday sentenced Brazilian engineering company Odebrecht SA to pay US$2.6 billion in fines in a massive criminal corruption case, signing off on a plea deal between the company and U.S., Brazilian and Swiss authorities.
The Brazilian engineering group Odebrecht kept a secret communications system to discuss and arrange the payments of bribes. A detailed spreadsheet mapped out who got what, all veiled under a system of codenames, and overseeing it all, there was an entire department at Odebrecht whose only purpose was to ensure the graft ran smoothly.
Odebrecht SA , the Brazilian engineering company at the center of a historic corruption scandal, paid about US$3.3 billion in bribes over a nine-year period that ran through 2014, according to testimony cited by local media in Sao Paulo.
New corruption charges linked to Brazil's massive embezzlement scheme at Petrobras oil company were filed on Thursday against former president Lula da Silva, prosecutors said. A judge will now have to decide whether Lula, whose spokesman called the charges invented, should face trial.
Brazilian President Michel Temer on Thursday unveiled a raft of stimulus measures to reduce the debt burden of businesses and consumers struggling with the country's worst recession on record amid growing popular discontent. Although limited in scope, the measures aim to appease Brazilians angry at the deepening recession in Latin America's biggest economy and allegations of corruption against Temer and his closest allies.