$13 million seized in bribery probe

The Special Anticorruption Prosecutor’s Office investigating the Odebrecht case in Panama reports that it has seized more than $13 million dollars in bank accounts.

Of the total, $10 million are “in the name of a Brazilian construction company”; $485,212 and $10,766 dollars in two accounts of a manager of the company who was not identified, and $3.2 million in a “fixed-value” account, the Public Ministry said in a statement.

The Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office, created to deal with cases and complaints against Odebrecht after the bribery scandal was uncovered, gave the information following revelations by the Brazilian publicist Mónica Moura,

Moura told Brazilian Justice that Odebrecht  in an agreement with the then Panamanian president, Ricardo Martinelli (illegally financed with $16 million the failed 2014 presidential campaign of Jose Domingo Arias in the elections of 2014.

The confesiions of Moura and her husband, Joao Santana, were released Wednesday after the Supreme Court’s trial judge for the in  case at state-owned Petrobras case  withdrew secrecy from the testimony.

The  Panama  prosecutor said that these allegations linking a political party in the country – Cambio Democrático,  led by ex President Martinellí helps them in one of the ongoing investigations.

Panama’ attorney and former ambassador to the OAS, Guillermo Cochez,  filed a complaint in February 2016 in which he warned that Santana was being investigated in Brazil and that he had worked on the 2014 political campaign in Panama.

The MP said that the investigation has called eight people for  investigation during this year for crimes against the economic order and against the public administration.

Moura and her husband, who organized  the winning campaigns of the Workers’ Party (PT) in 2006 (with Luiz Inácio Lula), 2010 for Dilma Rousseff in 2014, reached an agreement to collaborate with the prosecution in exchange for reductions in their sentences

According to the complainants, most of the resources for the electoral campaign that José Domingo Arias lost in Panama were illegally paid by Odebrecht with undeclared resources and deposits abroad.

Martinelli’s choice

Moura said that her work as a publicist in Panama was brokered by Odebrecht’s general director in that country, André Rabello, who contacted them asking for help for the candidate selected by Martinelli.

The Panamanian Public Prosecutor’s Office has opened six investigations into Odebrecht with at least 17 defendants, including the children of the former president, Ricardo Alberto and Luis Enrique Martinelli Linares, who are on Interpol’s red alert list.

In the bribes probe,  the MP accuses both brothers of having received at least $22 million dollars from the Brazilian construction company.

So far they have been seized two bank accounts in Switzerland, a luxury apartment in Spain and a helicopter in Mexico.

International web

The international dimension of the bribes  scandal became known in  late 2016 when the US Department of Justice revealed that the multinational admitted paying $788 million in bribes in 12 countries in Latin America and Africa, $59 million of them in Panama during the Martinelli government.

Odebrecht  is the main contractor of the Panamanian State and since arriving in the country in 2007 has executed projects that exceed $9 billion