Moro: Prisons are a 'remedy against corruption'
“With the assets and resources at their disposal, construction companies are able to interfere in various ways with the gathering of evidence, whether by pressuring witnesses or seeking political interference, noting that the crimes under investigation themselves involved the co-opting of public officials,” argued Judge Sergio Moro of the 13th Federal Court in Curitiba, in the order authorizing the arrests of Marcelo Odebrecht, owner of the largest Brazilian construction company, and Otávio Azevedo, president of Andrade Gutierrez, the second largest.
Federal judge Sérgio Moro, responsible for the Lava Jato Operation cases in the first instance, considered that the arrest of the main figures responsible for the two largest construction companies in the country was the "only remedy" to "break the rules of the game" of the corruption and money laundering scheme stemming from the overpricing of Petrobras contracts.
In the ruling authorizing the arrest of Marcelo Odebrecht, owner and president of the construction company Norberto Odebrecht, Otávio Marques Azevedo, president of Andrade Gutierrez, and other directors of the two construction companies, Moro argues that, if released, they represented a risk to the investigation and the procedural instruction.
"With the assets and resources at their disposal, construction companies are able to interfere in various ways with the gathering of evidence, whether by pressuring witnesses or seeking political interference, noting that the crimes under investigation themselves involved the co-opting of public officials," argued the judge of the 13th Federal Court in Curitiba.
According to Moro, an "effective" alternative to the pretrial detention of the executives would be the immediate suspension of the construction companies' contracts with the government. However, the judge believes this measure would have "damaging side effects" on the country's economy and jobs.
In the 52-page report, Sérgio Moro describes the workings of the criminal scheme to defraud Petrobras contracts, which affected, among other projects, the construction of the Abreu e Lima Refinery and the Rio de Janeiro Petrochemical Complex (Comperj).
"There is, as can be seen from the summary analysis, sufficient evidence of the participation of Odebrecht and Andrade Gutierrez in the construction cartel and in the fixing of bidding results. Not only oral evidence of the existence of the cartel and the prior fixing of bids among the construction companies, but also documentary evidence consisting of tables, regulations and electronic messages," says Moro in the document.
According to him, the modus operandi The scheme involving the payment of bribes to public officials and politicians used by the two construction companies was revealed by beneficiaries of the scheme, such as former Petrobras directors Paulo Roberto Costa and Pedro Barusco, as well as the money launderer and intermediary Alberto Youssef. Several contractors who were arrested during previous phases of Lava Jato and who signed plea bargain agreements with the Justice system, according to the court order, also stated that the directors of Odebrecht and Andrade Gutierrez were part of the cartel that defrauded Petrobras contracts.
Unlike the other construction companies investigated by Lava Jato, Odebrecht and Andrade Gutierrez used a "more sophisticated" model for paying bribes. According to Moro, the two companies used shell companies. offshore accounts, located in tax havens to try to cover up money laundering. In some situations, the judge added, the companies declared the payments to the Internal Revenue Service, but without actually providing the service.