Federal Police File Charges against Lula on Alleged R$4 Million Bribe from Odebrecht

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The Federal Police in Paraná formally charged former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva with passive corruption and money laundering related to Odebrecht‘s transfers of R$4 million (US$1 million) to the Lula Institute.

The Federal Police’s final report was signed last Monday, December 23rd, by delegate Dante Pegoraro Lemos and is part of an investigation opened in 2015 to determine the receipt of amounts from contractors investigated in Lava Jato by Lils, Lula’s lecture company.

Currently, Lula is a defendant in the lower court in Curitiba for another case involving the Lula Institute, under charges of having received a kickback from Odebrecht through the purchase of land for the organization’s headquarters.

The new indictment was brought in a case related to this purchase case, which is still awaiting a ruling on indictment from Judge Luiz Antônio Bonat.

After the charges by the Federal Police, the case files are forwarded to the Federal Prosecutor’s Office, which decides whether or not to lodge a complaint with the Court.

In Curitiba, Lula has already been convicted of passive corruption and money laundering in the cases of the Guarujá Triplex (SP) and the Atibaia Ranch (SP), by both the lower court and the federal appellate court.

The transfers to the Lula Institute were made officially, as a donation, between December 2013 and March 2014, but the police suspect that they originated from the credits of the kickbacks account managed by Odebrecht.

“The evidence showed that the funds transferred by Odebrecht under the heading of ‘donations’ were cut from a kind of informal kickback account kept with the construction company, similar to those for the acquisition of the property for the Lula Institute,” said the delegate in the report.

“There were then strong indications of the illegal origin of funds and, as a consequence, the practice of active and passive corruption, considering the payment of undue advantage to a public agent due to the position he had previously held.

In addition to Lula, Paulo Okamotto, president of the institute, former minister Antonio Palocci and Marcelo Odebrecht, the contractor’s former president, have been indicted.

Both Palocci and Marcelo signed leniency agreements.

Contacted, the ex-president’s defense has not yet commented.