Protected witness reveals Martinelli AKA “Águia”

At the beginning of June 2017, La Prensa published, for the first time, a nickname that at that time lacked a face. The nickname appeared on the bribery sheets paid by Odebrecht’s Structured Operations Sector. The alias was “Águia”, which in Portuguese means Eagle, but which also has other definitions: leader, boss, ruler and scoundrel.

For years, reports La Prensa there was speculation about the identity of ‘Águia’, although the fingers of the majority pointed almost always in the same direction.

As a security policy, the Structured Operations Sector, to prevent the true identity of its operators and bribes from being known and disclosed, identified them with nicknames.

The Special Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office received a document on September 25, 2020, that contained information provided by a protected witness, identified as FEA-0001-2020, within another investigation carried out by that Prosecutor’s Office. In Águia’s case, the report uncovered his face: Ricardo Martinelli Berrocal.

This would suggest that Martinelli -alias Águia- was receiving millions for years, sent by the Structured Operations Sector, money that was extracted from public works that his government awarded to Odebrecht.

or example: on October 9, 2014, Odebrecht ordered two payments. In the first column appeared the initials DS, which corresponds to the applicant (the Superintendent Director, position that André Rabello held in Panama). Another column identified the works, and in this one appeared “costeira tape” and “costeira tape 3”. And in the alias column, “Águia” appeared, with payments of $100,000 and $400,000.

A month before, another payment was made to Águia, of $500 000, linked to “Cinta Costera 3”.

That is, in just one month and three payments, Águia -or Martinelli- would have received $1 million. In August, September and December 2013, Águia received other payments: $282,000, $250 000 and $500,000, respectively. Total: $1 million 32 thousand. The funds were taken from the project that Odebrecht called the “Corredor Colón”, probably referring to the Madden-Colón highway.

Nicknames for security

When Marcelo Odebrecht created the Structured Operations Sector, he adopted as a security measure that no one knew the names of the bribes or the financial operators. To avoid this, he decided that everyone should receive a nickname with which they would identify

But “Águia” has older mentions. The payments seem to have started in 2009. “Águia” appears in instructions related to Panama and received by the external operator alias “Gigo” (Olivio Rodrigues Junior, who managed the Constructora Internacional del Sur account in Panama, SA, destined to the payment of bribes.

The Special Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office collected another eight payments that the Structured Operations Sector made to Águia in 2010, 2011 and 2014, which totaled $3.2 million. It was the company itself -Odebrecht- that delivered the payment orders through which it was possible to identify the beneficiary of illicit money with the pseudonym ‘Águia’.

The money in most of the cases went to bank accounts controlled by Martinelli’s sons Ricardo and Luis Enrique Martinelli Linares currently jailed in Guatemala awaiting extradition to the United States to face money laundering charges.