Brazilian construction company Odebrecht paid approximately 788 million dollars in bribes in 12 countries in Latin America and Africa, including Brazil, according to documents released yesterday by the US Department of Justice.
Payments were made in connection with “more than 100 projects in 12 countries, including Angola, Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico, Mozambique, Panama, Peru and Venezuela,” according to District Court documents Western New York.
The disclosure of these papers coincided with Odebrecht’s announcement today that it signed agreements under which it pledged to pay fines totaling 6,959.4 million reais (about US $ 2,047 million) to the US, Brazil and Switzerland to compensate for the unlawful acts being investigated in the three countries.
In Brazil, these illegal acts began in 2003 and continued until 2016, when Odebrecht paid in its country “approximately $ 349 million in corrupt bribes made to political parties, foreign officials and their representatives.”
The company paid that money in order to “secure an undue advantage to gain or retain business for Oderbrecht,” according to the US Department of Justice.
Outside Venezuela, the company paid some $ 98 million in Venezuela, between 2006 and 2015, to “government officials and intermediaries” to “obtain and retain public works contracts.”
It also disbursed $ 92 million, between 2001 and 2014, in the Dominican Republic to “government officials and intermediaries” and, as a result, made a profit of 163 million dollars.
Also significant was the disbursement in Angola, where, from 2006 to 2013, Odebrecht paid more than $ 50 million to government officials for “public works contracts” and in return it made a profit of 261.7 million of dollars.
In Argentina, the construction company paid between 2007 and 2014 more than $ 35 million to “intermediaries with the agreement that these payments would, in part, go to government officials.”
These bribes were related to “at least three infrastructure projects” and, as a result, the company took profits of $ 278 million.
Odebrecht’s corruption also hit Colombia, where it paid more than $ 11 million between 2009 and 2014 to award “public works contracts,” and made a profit of more than $ 50 million.
In Ecuador, between 2007 and 2016, the construction company made corrupt payments worth more than 35.5 million dollars to “government officials”, which generated profits of more than 116 million dollars.
According to the Justice Department’s report, between 2013 and 2015, under the government of Guatemalan President Otto Pérez Molina, the Brazilian construction company earmarked some $ 18 million in bribes to government officials to obtain public works contracts with which it obtained 34 million Of benefits.
In Mexico, official bites totaled about $ 10.5 million, and Odebrecht made more than $ 39 million in benefits from the contracts it secured as a result.
Between 2011 and 2014, the Brazilian company paid $ 900,000 to corrupt officials in Mozambique that the document does not identify, while in Panama, a country where Odebrecht has had a lot of work in recent years, bribes amounted to 59 million Dollars.
According to the official document, payments to corrupt officials and intermediaries were made between 2010 and 2014, during the administration of the previous president, Ricardo Martinelli, and with the contracts obtained the company achieved 175 million profits.
The text mentions as an example the payment between 2009 and 2012 of six million dollars “to two close relatives of a high government official” related to infrastructure works, which does not identify, and the fines were made to foreign accounts designated by the official Panamanian and intermediaries.
Over Peru, bribes totaling $ 29 million took place between 2005 and 2014, with benefits amounting to $ 143 million.