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Petrobras scandal engulfs more politicians

Friday, 13 March 2015 8:45 AM [ Last Update: Friday, 13 March 2015 8:45 AM ]

View of the Presidente Bernardes refinery of the Brazilian state-run oil company Petrobras in the city of Cubatao, some 60 kilometers from Sao Paulo, Brazil on March 12, 2015.

The graft scandal which has cast a long shadow over Brazil’s largest corporation Petrobras has most recently engulfed three members of the country’s ruling coalition.

Prosecutors said on Thursday they will investigate Luiz Fernando Pezao (seen below), the governor of Rio state, his predecessor Sergio Cabral, and Tiao Viana, the governor of the northern Acre state, in the case surrounding the state-owned oil giant.

Though nobody has yet been convicted, dozens of political figures and former Petrobras executives are under suspicion over a scheme facilitating corruption and money laundering that saw an estimated USD 3.8 billion creamed off inflated contracts over a decade.

It was reported last month that the chief executive of Petrobras and other executives of the Brazilian company had stepped down in the wake of the scandal.

Prosecutors have reportedly uncovered documents on some USD 800 million in illegal funds such as bribes, kickbacks, and price-fixing.

A statement from the attorney-general's office said it had "detected evidence of passive corruption and money laundering" against the three men.

The accusations leveled against them were made by Paulo Roberto Costa, a former Petrobras director, who turned whistleblower in a bid to reach a plea bargain with investigators.

President Dilma Rousseff, who served as the head of Petrobras before taking office in 2010, also faces criticism for failing to act against corruption during her tenure at the oil company and later as the Brazilian president.

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