Fausta's Blog

American and Latin American Politics, Society, and Culture

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Brazil: Lula goes to court

Brazil’s ex-President Lula in court over corruption

Lula is facing five charges related to the Car Wash scandal, a three-year investigation that has embroiled more than 100 politicians.

If convicted, he could face jail. If he gets off, he could return to the presidency in the 2018 elections.

He denies any wrongdoing.

Lula will give his testimony at a court in the southern city of Curitiba, where hundreds of his red-shirted supporters have been gathering to protest.

O Globo has live coverage.

It’s been a rough week for Lula; yesterday a judge shut down the Lula Institute:

A Brazilian judge ordered on Tuesday that the institute founded by former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva suspend its operations.

The ruling was made by federal Judge Ricardo Augusto Soares Leite, who is overseeing one of the five prosecutions Lula faces for alleged corruption

The prosecutors leading Brazil’s “Car Wash” anticorruption investigation have vowed to push ahead with the probe despite a new bill that they say limits their ability to do their jobs.

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Paraguay: The PCC’s great bank robbery

A gang of at least thirty men blew up the front of the Prosegur private security firm in Ciudad del Este, in Paraguay’s tri-border area, and made off with US$40million.

And that was just the start:
Huge robbery sparks gun battles in Paraguay and Brazil

After the robbery, the gang created a diversion by burning cars and attacking the local police station.

They escaped after a two-hour shootout that left one police officer dead at the scene after the company’s vaults were blown up.

Police believe they fled in several of the security company’s armoured trucks and then may have transferred their booty to waiting boats at the Parana river.

They were believed to have travelled 50km (30 miles) downriver to a region called Itaipulandia in Brazil, were they were intercepted by Brazilian police.

Brazilian federal police came across 12 men who exchanged fire and then escaped, Brazilian Globo website reported.

The BBC said there were fifty men, AlJazeera said up to 80 people may have been involved in the attack, and the Telegraph claims there were thirty,

Vladimir Jara, spokesman for Paraguay’s interior ministry, said they too believe the robbery was carried out by a Brazilian criminal organisation.
. . .
The city’s [Ciudad del Este] location means that cocaine from Bolivia flows down the river, before being distributed into the large Brazilian and Argentine metropolises.

At least 12 people managed to escape police at a third confrontation in Itaipulandia, also on the Brazilian side of the border.

Paraguayan police chief Luis Rojas said it was possible the attackers had help inside the police.

The above news video (in Spanish) attributes the robbery to Sao Paulo’s Primer Comando, Brazil’s largest organized crime organization, Primeiro Comando da Capital, or PCC, which was recently recruiting Colombian FARC members.

The PCC reportedly has consolidated control over the area’s drug traffic monopoly.

CNN also reports

Authorities believe the robbers were members of Primer Comando de la Capital, one of the largest criminal organizations in Brazil.

O Globo (link in Portuguese) confirms that eight suspects are under arrest. The O Globo article states there are fifty suspects, and that the eleven hostages had been released. Brazil’s Federal Police seized six rifles, ammunition, two boats and seven vehicles used in the assault.

This is the largest robbery in Paraguay’s history.

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Brazil: Lula “ready to run” again next year

Part of the fun of following Latin American news is that they are stranger than fiction. For instance, I first came across this headline at Panam post: Former Brazilian President Lula “Prepared” To Run Again in 2018.

They, in turn, got it from El Nuevo Herald: Lula dice estar “preparado” a ser candidato presidencial en 2018.

I couldn’t believe my eyes.

So I checked Brazilian media, and, sure enough, Lula da Silva pronto para voltar a disputar a Presidência. Antigo presidente brasileiro diz que os seus “adversários estão muito nervosos”. [Lula da Silva ready to run for President. Former president says his “adversaries are very nervous.”]. In an interview with Radio Meio Norte, Lula declared,

“Quero dizer que, se necessário, se o Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT) precisar eu estou disposto a voltar a disputar para ser Presidente”
[my translation:] “I want to say, that, if necessary, if the “Partido dos Trabalhadores (Workers’ Party, or PT) needs me, I am ready to run for President”

In another interview (link in Portuguese), Lula looked back nostalgically to his years as president and sighed, “I think the country needs to find its way, to be happy again, to live democratically.”

Lula was indicted five times on corruption-related charges just last year alone. That doesn’t count the evidence presented in court this week, any new charges, or the indictments against his children, his wife, or his associates. As Sabrina Martín correctly points out,

Lula is under investigation in connection with the Lava Jato operation. One investigation is allegedly claims that payments were made for a former Petrobras director’s silence; another is for Operation Zelotes, a framework that favored companies that did not pay taxes, as well as an investigation into influence peddling, and finally for money laundering which allegedly included an apartment on the coast Of Sao Paulo as one of the inducements.

Likewise, Lula is accused of participating in the project of rerouting between 2% and 3% of the value of the contracts signed between state-owned Petrobras and the construction company Odebrecht.

Let’s hope the Brazilian people stay the course fighting corruption and don’t get Lula back on the campaign trail.

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Brazil: Marcelo Odebrecht paid Lula US$5 million in bribes


Former Odebrecht Organization CEO Marcelo Odebrecht (whose grandfather Norberto founded the company in 1944) presented Judge Sergio Moro documents showing payments totaling nearly US$5 million to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, reports Infobae (link in Spanish).

The payments were made in 2012-2013 through Dilma Rousseff’s right-hand man, Antonio Palocci, who is under trial.

Marcelo Odebrecht, who has been in jail since 2015, reportedly provided the documents in hope of a reduced sentence, according to Infobae.

The WSJ reports Brazil Supreme Court Authorizes Investigation of Top Government Officials in the Lava Jato investigation,

Justice Edson Fachin, who is overseeing cases in Brazil’s high court related to the country’s sprawling Operation Car Wash probe, has given permission for prosecutors to open investigations into at least eight ministers, the leaders of both houses of Congress, and more than 50 senators and federal deputies, according to a document from the court released Tuesday.

The Car Wash investigation, which centers on bid-rigging at the state-controlled oil company Petróleo Brasileiro SA, or Petrobras, has led to more than 100 convictions over the past three years and implicated some of the country’s most influential businessmen and politicians of all major parties.

If you are keeping count, in 2016 Lula was indicted five times on corruption-related charges.

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Brazil: And now for the meat scandal

I haven’t posted on it, but the price of your steak may go up due to Brazil’s tainted-meat scandal:

Brazil Meat Scandal Creates Opening for Competitors. Clampdown on world’s largest beef and poultry exporter pushed U.S. cattle futures to a 14-month high on Wednesday

The European Union and countries including China have banned imports from Brazil or companies there accused by police of bribing sanitary officials for health certificates. The U.S. and other countries have also stepped up inspections of Brazilian imports.

The clampdown on the world’s largest beef and poultry exporter pushed U.S. cattle futures to a 14-month high on Wednesday. Tight supply is pushing up prices in Australia, too, and some analysts expect chicken prices to rise in China.

China and Hong Kong import most of their meats from Brazil. What does it mean for the U.S.?

In the U.S., hog farmers could benefit more immediately from Brazil’s troubles than their cattle- and chicken-farming peers because they have more access to the Chinese market. U.S. poultry has been banned from China since an Avian flu outbreak in January 2015. Beef remains locked out of the market until officials finish negotiating the end to a 13-year ban.

. . .

Guo Lijun, chief financial officer at WH Group, the world’s largest pork processor, said the company hoped to use the ban to boost its operations in the U.S., China and Hong Kong. U.S. hog futures surged on Thursday.

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Venezuela: Trump Talks about Venezuela in Calls with Brazilian, Chilean Leaders

News the MSM ignores: The LAHT reports, Trump Talks about Venezuela in Calls with Brazilian, Chilean Leaders (emphasis added)

Trump, who is spending the weekend at Mar-a-Lago, his exclusive Florida country club and resort, spoke with Temer on Saturday and with Bachelet on Sunday afternoon before returning to Washington.

According to a White House statement, Trump and Temer held a lengthy and fruitful chat in which the US leader emphasized the importance of the bilateral relationship with Brazil, a key partner in the Western Hemisphere.

The pair also discussed fostering respect for democratic and humanitarian rights in Venezuela, the White House said, and Temer said on his Twitter account that Trump invited him to visit Washington in the near future.

Trump then spoke with Bachelet Sunday afternoon and expressed his “concern” with the situation in Venezuela, and the two leaders agreed on the importance of advancing democratic principles throughout the Western Hemisphere, the White House said in a statement.

The mogul discussed the US-Chile bilateral relationship with Bachelet and issues linked to the close mutual cooperation on trade and security questions, the White House added.

Temer tweeted (my translation),
“Today I had a telephone call from @realDonaldTrump. He ffollows our work and congratulated us on our results.”

“We strengthened our direct channels of communication with @realDonaldTrump. He would like us to visit him in Washington.”

The Obama administration took a different approach to Venezuela.

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Colombia: Magdalena River dredging project suspended over Odebrecht

The project to make the Magdalena River in Colombia more navigable has been suspended:
Odebrecht Bribery Plea Muddies Colombia’s Big River Project. Channelization of Magdalena River stalled over corruption fears, thwarting country’s ambitious infrastructure plans

A string of gritty river towns along Colombia’s mightiest river have waited years for mounds of silt to be dredged from the waterway, a project that was supposed to start last year and bolster growth in Latin America’s fourth-largest economy.

But the $862-million contract to make 565 miles of the Magdalena River more navigable went mostly to Brazilian firm Odebrecht SA, whose explosive admission that it paid extensive bribes to land infrastructure projects led Colombian regulators last month to suspend the river works. That contract, which promised to triple river cargo, was the cornerstone of a now troubled $25-billion infrastructure initiative to build new highways, airports and ports that would modernize a country bedeviled by its rugged terrain.

The Odebrecht corruption investigation has tied up hundreds of infrastructure projects in the hemisphere: Odebrecht Mess Leaves Devastation Trail From Andes to Caribbean, among them

Peru’s grandest infrastructure project. The 1,025-kilometer (637-mile) Gasoducto Sur Peruano was meant to climb from Cuzco’s jungle gas fields to nearly 5,000 meters (16,405 feet) above sea level and then back down. Only 33 kilometers of pipe were in the ground before bribery allegations ended Odebrecht’s access to funds, prompting the government to terminate the contract last month.

Peru is particularly affected,

Nowhere is the scandal more damaging than in Peru where President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski is struggling to make good on his promise to boost growth by investing in infrastructure. Cancellation of Odebrecht’s pipeline contract set back a $70-billion infrastructure plan. Other projects have slowed under added scrutiny. Finance Minister Alfredo Thorne was forced to shave a percentage point off his growth forecast for 2017.

The BBC has a brief summary, Brazil’s Odebrecht corruption scandal

UPDATE
Trending at BadBlue.

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Venezuela: Where’s the money going?

Truckloads of bank notes have turned up thousands of miles away, first in Paraguay, and now in Brazil.

Photo: O Globo

InSight Crime has the story: Another Massive Seizure of Venezuela Currency Deepens Mystery: Why, since the currency itself is worthless? There are at least two theories:

In the case of Brazil,

One of the possibilities authorities are considering is that the drug traffickers were using the money to purchase weapons from Venezuelan arms dealers. Two years ago, police found that Venezuelans had supplied over 100 rifles to Rio gangs, reported O Globo.

In Paraguay,

the 25 tons of bolivars were reportedly offered to counterfeiters for $1 million. That is probably the highest value that could have been fetched for a currency that has become largely worthless due to Venezuela‘s worsening economic crisis.

Then there is a likelihood of money laundering, too.

Read the InSight Crime analysis.

The O Globo article (link in Portuguese) is here.

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