Construction Company Magnate to Admit Direct Link to Transfers to Rousseff's Presidential Campaigns

06/21/2016 - 10h23

Marcelo Odebrecht, former President of construction giant Odebrecht, as part of a plea-bargain agreement being negotiated with Lava Jato (Car Wash) investigation prosecutors, will admit that he personally controlled legal and illegal resources that fed the 2010 and 2014 Presidential campaigns, which were both won by now-suspended Dilma Rousseff, Folha has learned.

The executive will declare that he had a conversation with Rousseff in Mexico on May 26 2015, in which he informed the President that the Lava Jato investigators were close to uncovering the illicit payments that Odebrecht was making to marketing manager João Santana in Switzerland.

According to the executive, Dilma didn't pay attention to what he said.

The conversation took place 24 days before Odebrecht was arrested by the Federal Police - he has been held under preventive detention for a year as of last Sunday, the 19th.

The former Odebrecht President made payments to the PT through Party representatives at his home in the Morumbi neighborhood, in the Southern region of São Paulo.

Odebrecht will also likely testify that he didn't consider the illicit payments to the PT's marketing manager to be criminal.

For him, the off-the-books transfers are part of the political culture and financing system of political parties in Brazil.

Advisors to suspended President Dilma Rousseff confirmed in a written communication to Folha, that she was with Marcelo Odebrecht in May of 2015 in Mexico City during an official trip.

According to Dilma, donations and payments to João Santana were not subjects under conversation.

The written communication said that "all payments for services rendered to the campaign for re-election, including those to João Santana, were made according to the law and declared to the Electoral Court.

Translated by LLOYD HARDER

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