Workers' Party allegedly received up to $200m in bribes
Judge Sérgio Moro has declassified the details of the “Operation Car Wash” investigations into a graft scheme at Petrobras as it moved into its ninth stage on Thursday (Feb. 5). This has uncovered a statement given by former Petrobras manager Pedro Barusco last November, in which he said the treasurer of the ruling Workers' Party (PT), João Vaccari Neto, collected bribes on 90 Petrobras contracts on behalf of the party, making a total of $150 million to $200 million (an estimate based on Barusco's own share of $50 million).
Barusco said Vaccari has been involved in the scheme ever since he took over as party treasurer, and confirmed that Vaccari and former Petrobras Services Director Renato Duque took bribes to set bidders up with hefty contracts with the state oil giant between 2003 and 2013. These contracts included projects for the Abreu e Lima refinery in Pernambuco and the Petrochemical Complex in Rio de Janeiro (COMPERJ).
In a statement, the Workers' Party said it only receives legal donations which they declare to the Electoral Court, and vowed to sue their accusers “for their lies against the party”. The note went on: “The recent allegations made by a former Petrobras manager go along the same lines as other allegations made under plea bargain terms. They are all similar in that they are trying to implicate the party in wrongdoing but fail to give any evidence or even signs of wrongdoing and therefore cannot be taken seriously.”
Vaccari's attorney, Luiz Flávio Borges D'Urso, also denied the allegations in a note, maintaining his client “had long been looking forward to an opportunity of providing such clarifications as he gave Federal Police today, thus exposing, once and for all, the many absurdities implicating his name that have been published by the media in the past months.”
On Thursday (5), Vaccari was held for questioning at a Federal Police office in São Paulo to clarify the allegations that he collected bribes and legal donations to the party. The Workers' Party website published a note by Vaccari saying that he had answered all the questions asked by the police. “All the questions asked by the police chief were clarified. I have answered all his questions honestly and calmly,” he said.
Also as part of his plea bargain deposition last November, Barusco said the former Petrobras CEO Graça Foster and Ildo Sauer, both former Gas & Energy directors for Petrobras, were not aware of the scheme because “he never got the chance to talk to them about that.”
Translated by Mayra Borges
Fonte: Workers' Party allegedly received up to $200m in bribes
