‘Odebrecht paid $3.3 bln in bribes’
Ex-governor held
RIO DE JANEIRO, April 16, (Agencies): Odebrecht SA , the Brazilian engineering company at the center of a historic corruption scandal, paid out a total of about $3.3 billion in bribes in the nine years through 2014, according to testimony cited by local media on Saturday.
Through a department specifically established to pay politicians and other recipients for public works contracts, Odebrecht paid as much as $730 million annually in both 2012 and 2013, the years when bribe payments peaked, according to a spreadsheet that a former executive reportedly gave investigators as part of a plea deal.
The $3.3 billion figure, and related annual tallies as laid out in the spreadsheet, were reported on Saturday by the G1 news site of the Globo media group and the Estado de S. Paulo, a leading newspaper.
Officials at Odebrecht could not immediately be reached for comment.
A trove of plea deal testimony unsealed this week by a Supreme Court justice is shedding light on the extent and manner in which Odebrecht, once Latin America’s most successful engineering firm, routinely paid officials in Brazil and other countries in exchange for winning contracts.
The testimony was unsealed as the justice, Edson Fachin, authorized investigations of eight government ministers, 12 governors and dozens of federal lawmakers implicated in the scandal, uncovered three years ago because of a kickback investigation at the state-run oil company Petroleo Brasileiro SA, or Petrobras.
Fachin
Fugitive Mexican ex-gov held:
A fugitive former governor of Mexico’s Veracruz state suspected of embezzling hundreds of millions of dollars has been detained in Guatemala after six months on the run, officials said Saturday.
Javier Duarte “was located and detained for the purpose of extradition in the municipality of Panajachel” in Guatemala’s Solola department, Mexico’s attorney-general said in a statement.
Mexico requested Guatemala’s assistance in capturing the fugitive ex-governor of Veracruz, which borders the Gulf of Mexico. The operation was carried out jointly with national civil police and Interpol.
Mexican authorities issued an arrested warrant against Duarte in October for his alleged responsibility in organized crime and embezzlement.
New protests set in Venezuela:
Opponents and backers of Venezuela’s embattled President Nicolas Maduro announced new marches for Wednesday after violence in ongoing anti-government protests that have left five people dead.
Both sides promised to hold sway across Caracas on the heels of two weeks of demonstrations that also have seen 117 people arrested.
The latest in more than a week of violent clashes erupted overnight Thursday to Friday in the town of Los Teques near the capital.
The demonstrations are expected to be the next big showdown in an increasingly fraught crisis that has raised international concerns about Venezuela’s stability.
Chapo’s sons bodyguard killed:
The head bodyguard of the sons of captured Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman has been killed by soldiers while on the run following a jail break last month, officials said Saturday.
Francisco Javier Zazueta Rosales died in a gunfight with Mexican marines on Friday near the northwestern town of San Cayetano in Sinaloa, the state that was El Chapo’s stronghold, according to a statement by local prosecutors.
Zazueta had been locked up in February but escaped through the front gates of his jail on March 16 with four other detainees, including the son of another cartel chief associated with Guzman. The prison’s head of security disappeared soon afterward.
Family killed in Mexico:
Prosecutors say a couple and their son were killed during an Easter week visit to a cave in central-east Mexico that is popular with tourists.
The Puebla State Attorney-General’s Office says in a statement Saturday that prosecutors believe robbery was the motive for the killings in the picturesque mountain region.
The statement did not reveal the names or nationalities of the victims who were killed in the Chivostoc cave in Cuetzalan municipality by unknown assailants who shot them and took their belongings. It also did not specify the date the crime occurred.