Odebrecht Ready to Close Deal With Prosecutors in Brazil

By Lise Alves, Senior Contributing Reporter

SÃO PAULO, BRAZIL – In jail since June of 2015, the former head of one of Brazil’s largest construction companies, Marcelo Odebrecht, is ready to cooperate with authorities looking into the Lava Jato (Carwash) corruption scandal, according to daily O Globo.

According to the newspaper’s columnist Cristiana Lobo, Odebrecht and nearly fifty company executives are ready to name those who were given bribes by the construction giant. Lobo states that those names include politicians from all major political parties in Brazil, state governors, former presidents Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Dilma Rousseff, as well as cabinet members of President Michel Temer’s administration.

“The information to be given by Odebrecht has the potential to cause enormous impact on the political world, since it reaches almost all parties,” said Lobo in her Globo blog Tuesday morning.

In March of 2016, Marcelo Odebrecht, was sentenced to nineteen years and four months in jail for corruption and money laundering. A few months later local media reported that the executive was negotiating a deal with federal prosecutors to reduce his incarceration time. According to reports, the deal would reduce Odebrecht’s jail sentence to four years.

There has been speculation that the timing of the closing of the deal has been moved up due to the recent arrest of former Speaker of the House, Eduardo Cunha. Cunha is also being investigated in relation to the Lava Jato corruption scandal and many speculate that he may give prosecutors names of others involved to reduce his sentence and protect family members from being indicted.