Car Wash probes into embezzlement in Petrobras office construction

A new stage of Operation Car Wash, dubbed Operation No Funds, launched Friday (Nov. 23) by the Federal Police, is investigating criminal activities in the construction of Petrobras’s headquarters in Salvador, Bahia, northeast Brazil.

Investigators believe contracts may have been overpriced in construction management, and architecture and engineering project development.

The probes also indicate that the overpricing was aimed at paying “illicit amounts to public officials at Petrobras and leaders at Petros [Petrobras’s social security fund], in addition to associate parties—all of which to the detriment of Petrobras and the pension fund, which is sponsored by Petrobras itself and the contribution of its employees,” the note published by the police reads.

Federal agents have been serving 68 warrants for search and seizure, eight for preventive arrest, and 14 for temporary arrest in São Paulo, Minas Gerais, Rio de Janeiro, and Bahia, with a view to repress “active and passive corruption, mismanagement of pension funds, money laundering, and criminal organization.”