Three: Argentina, Brazil and Mexico.
Here’s the class of 2017 picture,
Argentina’s Mauricio Macri (#6), Mexico’s Enrique Peña Nieto (#4) and Brazil’s Michel Temer (#11) are in attendance.
Brazil runs out of money to issue passports
Last year the Rio Olympics were 51% over budget, to the tune of $1.6 billion, the month before they opened. The 2014 World Cup $3 billion stadiums were becoming white elephants a year later.
Now Brazilian authorities have suspended the issuing of new passports because of a budget crisis:
The government said emergency funds for passports would be debated this week.
In a statement late on Tuesday, the federal police said the decision to stop issuing new passports “stems from a dearth of funds earmarked to the activities of migratory control and the issuance of travel documents”.
There’s a lot of finger-pointing, of course, and a long history corruption, and trying to look like a country with strong infrastructure, and whatever, but it all comes down to one thing: overspending.
Cross-posted at WoW! Magazine.
Ecuador: Odebrecht stoolie turns in tapes of meetings with officials
José Santos, Odebrecht’s top officer in Ecuador, has turned in to investigators videos of his meetings with government officials, according to Veja.
In exchange, he received the shortest sentence of all seventy-seven of the company’s informants.
Seventy-seven singing: Big enough for a symphonic chorus.
Santos’s tapes must be music to the ears of the investigators of the bribes-for-government contracts case(s) against Odebrecht.
Karina Martín reports,
So far, investigations into the Odebrecht case in Ecuador have led to the imprisonment of eight people, among them an uncle of re-elected Vice President Jorge Glas and the former Minister of Electricity Alecksey Mosquera.
General Comptroller Carlos Polit, who is currently outside the country, has been involved, but due to his position, he reportedly enjoys judicial privilege.
Ecuador’s lead prosecutor Carlos Baca alleges that “60 percent of the corruption plot arrived and went through Panamanian ports.”
Cross-posted at WoW! Magazine.
Brazil: Temer acquitted
the court’s judges voted 4-3 to clear Mr. Temer and former President Dilma Rousseff of charges they used proceeds from the country’s vast Car Wash corruption scandal to fund their 2014 election campaign.
Interestingly,
The majority of the court’s judges said this week that their understanding of electoral law meant that they should only consider evidence available around the time when the case was first filed more than two years ago, before much of the Car Wash evidence was collected.
The trial lasted four days and was televised for a total of 25 hours.
Brazil: The heaters in the heaters
From Miami to Rio, via air,
Brazil seizes 60 assault rifles hidden in pool heaters
Police in Brazil have seized 60 assault rifles that had been smuggled from the US city of Miami in a shipment of swimming pool heaters.
The weapons, which included 45 AK-47 guns, were found at the cargo terminal at Rio de Janeiro’s Galeao International Airport.
Four people have been arrested, police said.
. . .
It is believed the guns could have been sold in Brazil for up to $1.5m (£1.1m) in total. Detectives are investigating an exporter in Miami, Globo newspaper reported without identifying them.
In other headlines:
J&F Investimentos, the holding company behind meatpacking giant JBS SA, agreed to pay roughly $3.2 billion in fines
The penalty outpaces the one levied against construction conglomerate Odebrecht last year as part of the same investigation.
The Associated Press reports J&F plans to pay the fine over a span of 25 years.
Yet this penalty is just one part of the plea deal; another component played out in a very public way earlier this month, when J&F co-owner Joesley Batista turned over a secret recording to prosecutors. That recording — which appears to show Temer condoning the payment of hush money to an imprisoned politician — leaked to media earlier this month, prompting protests in the streets and questions of whether Temer’s tenure could survive the scandal.
Temer insists he will remain in office.
Brazil: Temer asks for his investigation to continue
After asking that it be suspended, Brazil’s President Michel Temer has asked the Supreme Court to proceed with an investigation against him for obstruction of justice and corruption.
His lawyers say that a secret recording that appears to incriminate him has been edited 70 times.
. . .
President Temer was secretly recorded by Joesley Batista, president of Brazilian giant meat-packing firm JBS, during a late-night, unscheduled meeting.
The wealthy businessman made the recording as part of a plea bargain with the prosecutor’s office.
On the tape, Mr Temer seems to signal his approval for illegal payments to the former speaker of the lower house of Congress, Eduardo Cunha, who was jailed for corruption last year.
. . .
Many expected the president to resign once the contents of the tape were made public.
The WSJ lists Five Ways Brazil’s President Could Be Forced Out
Brazil: Not good news on Temer
A few headlines:
Brazilian President Michel Temer said he would ask the Supreme Court to suspend its investigation into allegations he was involved in a giant corruption scheme, vowing to remain in power.
There’s 100% chance that Brazil’s President Michel Temer will leave before end of mandate: Analyst
Pardon my French, but plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.
Brazil: Lula trial reveals ties with Chavez
As you may recall, Brazil’s former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is on trial.
All sorts of things are coming out. For instance, Lula personally recruited
Mônica Moura and her husband João Santana, a couple whose marketing strategies helped keep Brazil’s leftist Workers’ Party in power for 13 years
for help in Venezuelan Hugo Chávez’s 2012 campaign. Current dictator Nicolás Maduro (emphasis added)
Mr. Maduro, then Venezuela’s foreign minister, personally handed Ms. Moura $11 million in cash in his Caracas office, she said in the testimony given in court to Brazilian prosecutors in exchange for a reduced sentence on corruption charges. Brazil’s two largest construction companies, Odebrecht SA and Andrade Gutierrez, which are under investigation in Brazil for allegedly paying bribes to Mr. da Silva, wired her an additional $9 million to an offshore account, Ms. Moura said.
As the article correctly points out,
Under Mr. Chávez, Odebrecht became the biggest contractor in Venezuela, receiving roughly $11 billion over 14 years for projects ranging from irrigation channels to airports.
. . .
Odebrecht admitted to paying $98 million in bribes in Venezuela.
Now
The heads of Odebrecht and Andrade Gutierrez, as well as Mr. Santana and Ms. Moura, are all in jail or confined to their homes after being convicted on corruption charges related to Car Wash.
And they’re willing to talk.
Will this have any effect on Venezuela’s deteriorating condition? I doubt it; but it will have repercussions in Brazil.
Stay tuned.
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