New charges emerge against ex-president Lula in Odebrecht case

Federal prosecutors in the Federal District filed charges against former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and ten other people, among them entrepreneur Marcelo Odebrecht, ex-CEO at the Odebrecht construction company, for passive corruption, money laundering, and influence peddling involving the National Economic and Social Development Bank (BNDES) in an attempt to ensure funding for works in Angola.

According to the prosecutors, the works had been carried out by the construction firm, hired by the Angolan government with funds granted by the BNDES for the export of services. In exchange, the company would “pass on to the parties involved amounts adding up to the equivalent of [$9.38 million] in a concealed fashion.”

The prosecution divides Lula's doings into two stages. In the first, he is being accused of passive corruption, as he was president from 2008 to 2010. Between 2011 and 2015, the charges concern influence peddling. In addition, the prosecutors request the onetime president to answer for money laundering, a crime “that was perpetrated 44 times and made possible by the transactions justified by the hiring of firm Exergia Brasil, created in 2009 by Taiguara Rodrigues dos Santos, Lula's 'nephew', who is also facing a criminal suit,” the Prosecution Service declared in a note.

Prosecutors also view as illicit the amounts paid to the president for lectures he allegedly delivered at the request of construction company Odebrecht.

Translated by Fabrício Ferreira