SAO PAULO/RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) – Brazilian police said they issued an arrest warrant for President Dilma Rousseff’s campaign manager yesterday, complicating her fight to survive an investigation into her re-election in 2014 and stave off impeachment by Congress.
The investigation of campaigner Joao Santana, known as “the maker of presidents” in Latin America, was part of Brazil’s largest-ever corruption investigation focused on state-run oil firm Petroleo Brasileiro SA, or Petrobras.
The arrest of Santana could be a further blow to Rousseff, who is not being investigated in the scandal but has seen her popularity plummet as a result. She is facing questions over whether her campaign was financed with bribe money skimmed off of Petrobras, as the oil company is known.
The former ruling Workers’ Party treasurer and a top aide to former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, as well as dozens of engineering executives and a ruling party senator have been arrested for colluding to overcharge Petrobras for work in order to distribute the excess funds as bribes.
The arrest warrant for Santana said evidence suggested he received payments associated with Odebrecht SA, Latin America’s largest engineering group, whose offices in three Brazilian cities were also raided by police on Monday.
Police added they were investigating contracts with shipbuilder Sete Brasil and Keppel Fels, the Brazil unit of Singapore’s oil rig builder Keppel Corporation Ltd.
Santana was not arrested because he is in the Dominican Republic overseeing the president’s re-election campaign. A press representative for Santana’s company, Polis Propaganda, said he would return to Brazil and present himself to authorities.
Santana, 63, also advised Lula and late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in his re-election bid in 2012. A former journalist, Santana is known for producing dramatic, big-budget campaign videos appealing to poor voters.
COMPENSATION
WITH BRIBES
Police said they had identified $3 million in deposits for Santana in offshore accounts associated with Odebrecht in 2012 and 2013, helped by data released by Citibank in the United States. Santana bought an apartment in Sao Paulo with the payments from Odebrecht, they added.
Federal judge Sergio Moro said in the arrest warrant that messages seized from Marcelo Odebrecht, the former CEO of the family-run conglomerate, suggested the payments to Santana abroad were “surreptitious political donations.”
“It is possible that the transfers were intended to compensate, with bribes from Petrobras contracts, Joao Santana and Monica Regina for services provided to the Workers’ Party,” Moro wrote, referring to Santana’s wife and business partner.
Asked about the link to Rousseff’s election, Police Chief Filipe Pace said in a press conference Workers’ Party campaigns were not being investigated in this phase, only Santana as a beneficiary of bribes from the Petrobras scheme.
Brazil’s electoral court is investigating Rousseff’s 2014 re-election campaign, including the suspicion of illegal funding. Congress is also trying to impeach her for allegedly manipulating government accounts in 2014, while she campaigned for re-election.
