In a statement, Cardozo asserts: De Grandis lied.

A scandal has emerged within the corruption scandal involving energy and rail transport contracts in São Paulo, directly impacting the PSDB governments. ISTOÉ discovered that prosecutor Rodrigo de Grandis shelved not just one, as initially reported, but eight official requests for cooperation from the Ministry of Justice since 2010, all from Swiss authorities interested in investigating the Siemens-Alstom case. Over three years, De Grandis was also contacted by email, had lengthy phone conversations with authorities in Brasília, and requested the transfer of documents. Last week, it became known that, due to the lack of Brazilian cooperation, the Swiss Public Prosecutor's Office decided to close the investigation against three of those accused of distributing bribes to PSDB politicians and public officials. In his only statement on the case, De Grandis claimed that he always cooperated and only failed to respond to a request made in 2011, which he said was filed in the "wrong folder." But his version seems difficult to substantiate with facts.

Known for the vigor he demonstrated in investigations into former governor Paulo Maluf and also in the Satiagraha case, which led to the imprisonment of banker Daniel Dantas, this time the 37-year-old federal prosecutor did not show the same energy. To use an expression that often defines the posture of authorities who only contribute to the impunity of criminal acts: he sat on the process. Last month, a member of the Federal Public Prosecutor's Office in São Paulo even denounced to his superiors that De Grandis's conduct "paralyzed" the investigation against the leading figures of the PSDB party for two and a half years. The reasons that led him to shelve the case will now be the subject of scrutiny by the Attorney General, Rodrigo Janot, and the Inspector General of the National Council of the Public Prosecutor's Office, which has opened a disciplinary complaint against De Grandis.

To date, the prosecutor's explanations lack consistency. With good will, his theory of "administrative failure" might even suffice to explain a lost official document. But it makes no sense when one knows that eight official documents were sent, not to mention the phone calls and emails. The last of these documents, which arrived on Rodrigo De Grandis's desk just two weeks ago, accuses the prosecutor of "never" having responded to communications made by the Department of Asset Recovery and International Cooperation (DRCI) of the Ministry of Justice, responsible for judicial matters with other countries.

The first official request from the Swiss Public Prosecutor's Office arrived in Brazil on March 15, 2010, and on April 16, it was forwarded to the Attorney General's Office and the Federal Prosecutor by official letter no. 3365. The Swiss authorities wanted the lifting of bank secrecy, interrogations, and search and seizure warrants for the offices of Romeu Pinto Júnior, Sabino Indelicato, and other suspects. Nothing was done. On November 18, Switzerland made the first amendment to the cooperation request, and a new official letter was sent to the Brazilian Federal Prosecutor's Office on December 1. This time, the Swiss Public Prosecutor's Office requested information that could support seven ongoing cases in that country. Nothing. On February 21, 2011, the foreign prosecutors tried for the third time. They wanted to hear, among others, the lobbyist Arthur Gomes Teixeira and João Roberto Zaniboni, former director of the Companhia Paulista de Trens Metropolitanos (CPTM).

In March, Swiss authorities demanded a response to their requests. De Grandis was contacted again, but did not reply. In July and November, new official letters were sent regarding Switzerland's requests for cooperation. Once again, silence. After two and a half years, on August 7th of this year, with the bribery scandal knocking on the door of the Palácio dos Bandeirantes (São Paulo state government headquarters), Minister José Eduardo Cardozo was informed of the lack of cooperation and ordered that the prosecutor be contacted again. All in vain. Without obtaining a response, the Ministry of Justice sent another official letter (6020/2013) to the Federal Public Prosecutor's Office on October 10th. And yet another (6280/2013) on the 21st, reiterating the "extreme urgency and importance of the matter" and requesting a response within five days. De Grandis requested new document submissions and finally responded last Wednesday, the 30th. The response, however, was incomplete – only some testimonies. The prosecutor's obsequious silence made it impossible to carry out investigations that could have been essential to fueling the bribery scheme investigations, both in Switzerland and Brazil, causing incalculable damage to the clarification of a corruption scheme whose full extent is still unknown. If conducted at the right time, these investigations could have helped authorities establish, in advance, the link between the scheme used by Alstom and that of Siemens to bribe politicians.

In August 2012, after four years of investigation, the Federal Police concluded the first inquiry into the Alstom case. Without access to Swiss banking and tax data, they were only able to gather partial evidence to indict city councilman Andrea Matarazzo for passive corruption. Matarazzo, in 1998, was the state Secretary of Energy in the Mário Covas government. The inquiry went to De Grandis, who, more than a year later, has still not filed his charges. Behind the scenes, the prosecutor complained to his advisors that the police report was poorly substantiated. Under pressure, he requested the Federal Court to lift the confidentiality of 11 defendants. State prosecutor Silvio Marques and other federal prosecutors in São Paulo requested in July the sharing of evidence to further the investigation. The Swiss prosecutors, far from shelving the cases, are also very interested in obtaining Brazilian cooperation.

Last week, ISTOÉ sent De Grandis's office a list of 20 questions. None were answered. Through its press office, the Federal Public Prosecutor's Office (MPF) cited "confidentiality of the investigations" and said that the prosecutor is on leave until December 5th to complete a master's degree. A specialist in criminal law and professor at the Superior School of the Public Prosecutor's Office of São Paulo, De Grandis is considered by his colleagues to be a difficult person with few friends. Among them are former delegate Protógenes and neo-activist Pedro Abramovay, now a staunch anti-PT (Workers' Party) member after being ousted from the government. For lawyer Píer Paolo Bottini, former secretary in the Márcio Thomaz Bastos administration and Rodrigo de Grandis's professor in a postgraduate course, the prosecutor would never use his position for political purposes. "I know him and I don't believe he has any bias in his actions," he says.

Former minister José Dirceu thinks differently. Last week, he again accused De Grandis of acting politically by breaking his telephone secrecy to try to implicate him in the MSI case, the scheme involving corruption in São Paulo's football football. In Operation Satiagraha, De Grandis and Protógenes joined forces against Daniel Dantas, a long-time ally of the PSDB and Marcos Valério, who became closer to the PT after Lula came to power in 2002. Starting in 2008, state deputy Roberto Felício (PT) submitted six complaints to the prosecutor. The deputy also alerted De Grandis to evidence that Alstom and Siemens were using the same international consulting firms for money laundering and the payment of bribes and kickbacks to various authorities in Brazil. None of these complaints were concluded.