FBI plans regional anti-corruption unit

The Odebrecht and Petrobras cases in Brazil have motivated the United States’ FBI to create an anti-corruption squad for Latin America and Miami.

The creation of the unit was confirmed by Leslie Backschies, head of the FBI’s international corruption unit, in an interview with a  news agency that and reported by the Colombian newspaper El Tiempo.

“We have seen a lot of activity in South America: and we have had a lot of work

there (…) These cases are very delicate from the political point of view, not only in the United States but abroad

The FBI is also going to persecute those who are using Miami and New York as an operation center to launder dirty money from corruption.

The senior FBI official points out that there are several people with yachts and

mansions who hide their money through ghost companies in North America.

This new squadron will report directly to officials in Washington and at the

moment it has six agents who will begin operations at the end of March. They will have a supervisor and a forensic accountant.

Backshies did not give details of which countries will start conducting the first

investigations to detect corruption networks. The well-known Odebrecht case has spread to Panama and authorities of the Public Prosecutor’s Office are carrying out investigations into scores of people that have not yetconcluded.

According to the United States in the Brazilian company paid at keast $89 million in bribes.