You read it right: half a billion $US, out of $9 billion (emphasis added),
Brazil’s attorney general on Tuesday accused former presidents Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Dilma Rousseff and some of their political allies of embezzling around $500 million between 2002 and 2016, a period encompassing all of the leftist party’s 13 years in power.
Attorney General Rodrigo Janot said that during Mr. da Silva’s and Ms. Rousseff’s terms, the suspects, all members of the Workers’ Party, or PT, used state-run companies to pocket taxpayer money.
Mr. Janot’s office said in a press release that the alleged scheme cost at least $9 billion to public coffers. Mr. Janot sent the charges to the Supreme Court, which has an undefined amount of time to either accept or dismiss them before any trial is launched.
Brazilian ex-presidents accused of forming criminal group.
At the BBC,
Mr Janot said that Lula was the head of the alleged organization, and that the Workers’ Party received some $480m (£370m) in bribes in several public entities, including Petrobras and the Brazilian National Development Bank (BNDES).
The scheme allegedly started with Lula’s victorious election campaign in 2002 and ended when Ms Rousseff was impeached last year, Mr Janot added in a 230-page document.
Dilma says there’s no evidence.
Lula’s running for president next year, if his appeal against a corruption conviction is successful.