Brazil anti-corruption raid nets Rio’s ex-governor

A former governor of Rio de Janeiro state was arrested on bribe-taking and money laundering charges Thursday in Brazil’s sprawling anti-corruption investigation codenamed operation Car Wash.
Federal police said they had arrested Sergio Cabral, who governed from 2007 to 2014, early in the morning at his home in Rio’s posh Leblon neighborhood.
Cabral, from the PMDB party of Brazilian President Michel Temer, is charged with membership of a group that allegedly embezzled 220 million reais ($64 million) from public works projects including Rio’s iconic Maracana football stadium. Seven other people were arrested and two more were detained for questioning in related raids.
The arrest of Cabral was an offshoot of the much bigger Car Wash probe into embezzlement and bribery by some of Brazil’s highest ranking politicians in a scheme that ransacked the state oil company Petrobras.
The arrest comes as pressure mounts in Congress — where dozens of lawmakers have been linked to corruption cases — to curtail aggressive Car Wash prosecutors.
Federal police said in a statement that Cabral, who resigned in 2014 amid demonstrations against his alleged corruption, took bribes to award construction contracts.
These included the refurbishment of the Maracana stadium ahead of the 2014 football World Cup. Among the big companies allegedly participating in the Rio pay-to-play scheme was construction giant Andrade Gutierrez, a key target in the broader Petrobas probe.
“It was established that members of the criminal organization of Sergio Cabral have amassed and laundered immense wealth, including through the purchase of luxury goods, as well as the provision of fictitious consulting services,” police said.
As governor, Cabral allegedly used his bribe money to buy his wife expensive dresses, and for jewels, exclusive restaurant outings, and, according to Globo news site, even the hotdogs supplied for his son’s party.
On Wednesday another former Rio governor, Anthony Garotinho, was arrested for running an alleged vote-buying scheme.
The unrelated case also emphasized the depth of alleged corruption not just across Brazil but particularly in Rio, a state that has hosted a series of international mega events over the past five years, notably the World Cup and this year’s Rio Olympics.
Rio state is now struggling to keep afloat financially, with hospitals and emergency services running out of money. The state required a huge federal bailout on the eve of the Olympics to keep going.
Protests against proposed austerity cuts turned violent Wednesday outside the state legislature in Rio de Janeiro.
Meanwhile, one of the first ever figures convicted in the Car Wash investigation was released to serve out the rest of his sentence in home detention Wednesday.
Alberto Youssef, 49, was arrested in March 2014 and initially sentenced to 120 years in prison for his role in laundering money in the Petrobras embezzlement scheme. However, his sentence was drastically reduced to three years after he turned state’s witness and helped prosecutors to unravel what turned out to be a far bigger case than initially suspected.
Youssef’s testimony was one of the first uses of the plea bargain system that prosecutors have employed to devastating effect in cracking the wall of secrecy around Brazil’s corrupt elite.