Odebrecht: five years after the corruption nightmare that stained Latin American leaders

The corruption plot that the Brazilian construction company orchestrated for 20 years Odebrecht and that came to light five years ago, it cost Latin America not only delay in its great infrastructure works but to see some of its greatest political and business leaders fall into a dark cobweb.

Since on December 21, 2016, the United States Department of Justice uncovered the scandal according to which Odebrecht paid bribes to presidents, former presidents and officials of 12 countries in Latin America and Africa to obtain benefits in public contracting, Brazil, Peru and Colombia they have suffered the most dramatic cases.

In the Brazilian giant, where the company was created in 1944, after the Lava Jato operation uncovered in 2015 the diversion of money from the state oil company Petrobras, the Odebrecht case dragged hundreds of politicians and executives with it, including the former president. Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (2003-2010).

Lula was arrested in April 2018 and spent 580 days behind bars accused of corruption and money laundering. However, he regained his freedom in 2019 and the sentences were overturned this year due to a matter of competences, decisions that returned him to the political arena.

Mourning in Peru

Odebrecht’s shadow continues to hover over Peru, where former presidents Alejandro Toledo (2001-2006), Alan García (2006-2011), Ollanta Humala (2011-2016) and Pedro Pablo Kuczynski (2016-2018) have been implicated, as well as like the opposition leader Keiko Fujimori and other politicians and businessmen.

In April 2019, the tragedy touched the country when García committed suicide to avoid being arrested.

For Humala and his wife, Nadine Heredia, the Prosecutor’s Office requested 20 and 26 and a half years in prison, respectively, and in November an indictment was issued.

Likewise, although it has not yet become effective, the extradition of Toledo to Peru was endorsed at the end of last September by a United States judge for being involved in the alleged receipt of a bribe of about US $ 35 million to facilitate the business of the Brazilian company.

For his part, Kuczynski remains under house arrest since he left the presidency in 2018.

As for the three-time presidential candidate Keiko Fujimori, the Prosecutor’s Office has requested 30 years in prison after accusing her of receiving irregular money from Odebrecht for her 2011 and 2016 campaigns, and is still waiting to know if an oral trial will be opened.

Muddy campaigns in Colombia

The scandal affected the presidential campaigns of Juan Manuel Santos and Óscar Iván Zuluaga in Colombia in 2014, although subsequent investigations clarified that they did not receive money from Odebrecht.

For the scandal, former senators Otto Bula, for being one of Odebrecht’s “messengers” to bribe, and Bernardo Miguel “Ñoño” Elías, the former Deputy Minister of Transportation Gabriel García Morales, the business brothers Enrique and Eduardo Ghisays Manzur and the Former president of Corficolombiana (Odebrecht partner in the construction of the Ruta del Sol II highway) José Elías Melo.

The country also had a dark chapter with the deaths of engineer Jorge Enrique Pizano and his son Alejandro.

Pizano Sr. was an auditor in Corficolombiana de la Ruta del Sol II and before he died of a heart attack at his home, he left a recorded interview, broadcast by “Noticias Uno”, in which he revealed that the then attorney general of Colombia, Néstor Humberto Martínez, He had known since 2013, before coming to office, the Odebrecht corruption scheme.

His son Alejandro returned from Barcelona to say goodbye and three days later, when he was sorting out his memories, he drank from a bottle of water that he found on his father’s desk and that contained cyanide, which caused his death.

The Martinelli and Varela, in the crosshairs

In the United States, this month Ricardo Alberto and Luis Enrique Martinelli Linares, sons of former Panamanian president Ricardo Martinelli (2009-2014), pleaded guilty in a federal court in New York to money laundering and the payment of US $ 28 million in bribes. to a senior Panamanian official on behalf of Odebrecht.

The Martinelli Linares, whose sentence will be known next May, acknowledged their guilt after being extradited from Guatemala and reaching an agreement with the US Attorney’s Office, which has requested between 9 and 11 years in prison.

In Panama, where Odebrecht admitted to having allocated US $ 59 million to bribes, there are 50 defendants and two former presidents under investigation: Martinelli and Juan Carlos Varela (2014-2019).

Correists in trouble

Former president Rafael Correa and his vice president, Jorge Glas, did not get rid of the Brazilian plot in Ecuador.

Glas was removed from the vice presidency in 2017 amid a trial for which he was sentenced to six years in prison.

In 2020, the so-called “Bribery 2012-2016” case led again to his conviction and that of Correa, a fugitive in Belgium, for bribery in a case of illegal financing of companies to the ruling Alianza País movement, including Odebrecht.

Few convictions in Guatemala

In Guatemala, the case has had as its main protagonist the former Minister of Communications Alejandro Sinibaldi, allegedly benefiting from bribes, as well as former presidential candidate Manuel Baldizón, currently imprisoned in the United States, and businessman Carlos Arturo Batres Gil.

So far, three people, all linked to Sinibaldi, have been sentenced to six years in prison for money laundering: Juan Ignacio Florido, Juan Manuel Colina Colorado and Jorge Eduardo Antillón Klussman.

Impunity in the Dominican Republic

In the Dominican Republic, the trial concluded on October 14 with only two convictions and the feeling of impunity.

Former Minister of Public Works Víctor Díaz Rúa was sentenced to five years in prison for money laundering and Ángel Rondón, a former representative of Odebrecht in the country, to eight years for distributing the bribes.

The company admitted to paying $ 92 million in bribes between 2001 and 2014.

The Prosecutor’s Office has opened a new investigation that includes public works and officials who were excluded from the original file, in a questioned effort headed by former attorney general Jean Alain Rodríguez, who is now in preventive prison for his alleged involvement in another corruption scandal.

Argentina continues to investigate

The Justice in Argentina continues to investigate Odebrecht in three cases.

One for the alleged undue payments that the consortium made up of Odebrecht, Ghella, Comsa and Iecsa – then controlled by Angelo Calcaterra, cousin of former President Mauricio Macri (2015-2019) – made in the project to bury the Sarmiento train tracks – a officials and intermediaries of the Governments of Néstor Kirchner (2003-2007) and Cristina Fernández (2007-2015).

Another on the projects for the extension of the trunk gas pipeline networks, divided into two sections: the Libertador General San Martín and Neuba II gas pipelines since 2005, and the expansion of gas transportation capacity throughout 15 provinces, from 2007.

And the third line of investigation is that of the alleged undue payments since 2010 in the project to build a water purification plant for the state company AySA in Paraná de las Palmas.

Politicians, unpaid in Mexico

In Mexico, there is not a single politician convicted of bribery, which amounted to more than US $ 20 million in the governments of Vicente Fox (2000-2006), Felipe Calderón (2006-2012) and Enrique Peña Nieto (2012-2018).

The main person implicated, the former CEO of Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex) Emilio Lozoya, has been in preventive prison since last November for allegedly receiving US $ 10.5 million from Odebrecht during the campaign and the presidency of Peña Nieto.

The current government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador has said that these bribes were behind the approval of the energy reform that opened the sector to private investment in 2013, which is why former senator Jorge Luis Lavalle is also in preventive detention.

Unfulfilled promises in Venezuela

The attorney general of Venezuela, Tarek William Saab, announced in September 2017 that he had reopened an investigation into Odebrecht, after considering that no progress had been made in the previous administration of the Public Ministry, but until now information on the matter is unknown and there is no accused.

The NGO Transparency Venezuela denounced in its latest report on the company, published in 2019, that in 23 of the 34 works assigned to Odebrecht the initial amounts increased between 6% and 926% and at least 17 of the largest are unfinished or they had delays of four to eight years.

Recently, the illegitimate President Nicolás Maduro approved more than US $ 17.5 million to complete works on the country’s transportation system that Odebrecht did not complete, a promise it had already made in 2017 and 2018.