Former Workers' Party lower house head arrested under Operation Car Wash

Former Workers' Party (PT) lower house head Cândido Vaccarezza was temporarily arrested today (Aug 18) in São Paulo by the Federal Police under Operation Car Wash. The ex-deputy is to be driven to Curitiba, in the southern Paraná state, where the investigations linked to the crackdown are being conducted.

In addition to Vaccarezza's imprisonment, the police are serving 46 court rulings—29 for search and seizure, 11 for police questioning, and five temporary arrests—in the cities of São Paulo, Santos, and Rio de Janeiro. The orders are being executed in two stages of Car Wash, Operation No Borders (the 43rd), and Operation Slaughter (the 44th).

A note released by federal prosecutors in Curitiba reports that Vaccarezza, investigated under Operation Slaughter, took advantage of his position from January 2010 to March 2012 in order to help company Sargeant Marine win deals with Petrobras, which led to the inking of 12 contracts, from 2010 to 2013, totaling some $180 million.

“Evidence also shows that his participation took place under PT's name within the partisan scheme that drained Petrobras. As for the sharing of kickbacks, there are documents revealing both the 'house' Petrobras employees and the PT were benefited,” the note adds.

Brought under investigation as part of Operation No Borders is “the illicit ties between Petrobras executives and the group of foreign defrauders forged with a view to obtaining privileged information and facilitating the winning of millionaire contracts totaling millions reais with the Brazilian company.”

*Aécio Amado contributed to this article.

Translated by Fabrício Ferreira