Odebrecht | Former director of Gaja 2 confirmed in court that he illegally sent money to Peru | Luiz Eduardo da Rocha Soares | Lava Jato | Lima Metro | Jorge Cuba | Cooperation Agreement | principle

Under the agreement, da Rocha Soares is the third Brazilian witness to testify in the trial Otbrecht with Peru. They did before Our Carlos Former Director of Contracts Lima Metro; Y George Parada, former president of a construction company in Peru. The latter also accounted for payments to contribute to the campaigns of politicians such as Ollanta Humala, Keiko Fujimori, Alan García, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski and Susana Villarán.

Read more | Jorge Barada Confirms Campaign Contributions Over $7 Million: All His Testimony

Ministry of Public Welfare alleges George CubaDeputy Minister of Communications during the second government Alan Garcia, Eight more for corruption and money laundering offences. It revolves around an alleged payment of more than US$8 million from Odebrecht to obtain unfair advantages in bidding for Phases 1 and 2 of the project. In his statement as part of the trial, Jorge Barada and Carlos Nostre They confirmed that the money was distributed at the behest of the former deputy minister, who was prosecuted and sentenced to 35 years in prison.

New testimony

The testimony of Jorge Barada and Carlos Nostre focused on what happened in Peru: the money demanded by Jorge Cuba and the procedure for winning the tender for the Lima Metro. However, they couldn’t explain how the company’s Box 2 works. They sent a request for payment to their headquarters in Brazil, and the disbursement of money was managed by management. Department of Built Operations (DOE).

Thus, testimony Da Rocha Soares focused on what is happening in Brazil in terms of claims for illegal payments in countries like Peru. It was the first witness to shed light as part of an investigation in Peru on how a division of a construction company dedicated to paying bribes operated. For the case, this is important because Evidence has been established before the Peruvian justice system that Odebrecht’s structured operations sector was used for illicit payments and fueled by illegal sources.

With the help of a Portuguese translator, The Fourth Collegiate Criminal Court of the National High Court of Special Criminal Justice The investigation started at 9.45 am on Thursday. The witness was connected to the virtual hearing from Brazil and spent about 50 minutes answering questions from José Domingo Perez, the lawyer of the Lava Jato Special Committee in charge of the case.

Da Rocha Soares, The 61-year-old Brazilian explained that he was a retired executive after 28 years at Odebrecht. Between 1990 and 2006, He was the international treasurer of the Odebrecht Group. Between 2006 and 2014, during the key years of the Lava Jato case in Peru, he was director of the construction company’s Structured Operations Department (DOE), which was “responsible for the company’s unaccounted payments.” “[Eran] Payments made outside the company’s accounting environment. Because they are illicit money” He described.

Da Rocha Soares’ specific function is to “seek alternatives to banks for payment”. Apart from him, the DOE was made up of Chief or Superintendent Hilberdo Mascarenhas Alves da Silva Bilho; Its treasurer is Fernando Migliaccio and its workers, in charge of the “daily”, Maria Luisa Tavares and Angela Palmeira. Its offices were at Otbrecht’s headquarters in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

The process was described as follows: A supervisor or boss of Odebrecht in a country (Brazil, Peru or any other where it operates) requests payment from the DOE. Data is entered into an encrypted system My Web Day, whose server is hosted in Switzerland; Finally, the DOE He gave the money. However, he noted that since they used the money, they did not know the identity of the final recipients of the money. code names.

“The superintendent gave codes for payment. These were entered into the My Web Day system and sent from there for payment. He explained. Codenoms are “names by which paying beneficiaries are known.” Because of the illicit nature of payments, the goal was always to maintain secrecy.

For this reason, the aforementioned MyWebDay server was used to register the payment request, and then the computer Dresses Toleros (changers) to interact with “financial operators” responsible for making cash disbursements or deposits into bank accounts. The witness said the DOE worked with three banking institutions: Meinl Bank in Antigua, Banca Privada de Andorra and Credicorp Bank in Panama.

The Peruvian case

As part of the investigation, counsel Jose Domingo Perez He asked the witness to identify the person who illegally demanded the payment in Peru. His answer was George Baratta. He said his boss, Luis Eduardo Mameri, approved the payment requested by Jorge Barada. Mameri “Director Odebrecht for Latin America, responsible for countries including Peru.” Above the two was Marcelo Odebrecht, CEO of the business group.

Asked how illegal payment operations were carried out in Peru, he said, “We sent to the current accounts indicated by the supervisor or used tolero” so that the delivery could be made in the local currency. “I have no connection with them,” he added. The person who knew who was being paid, he reiterated, was “Supervisor George Parada.”

For Peru, the testimonies already provided by former Otbrecht executives in Peru, such as the aforementioned Jorge Barada and Carlos Nostre, come into play. Both pointed to George Cuba as the person who requested it More than 8 million was paid for the Lima Metro tender.

On another occasion, the witness said he had been to Peru “a long time ago” without remembering exactly when. He explained that he had come and met at the request of Jorge Barata to manage some payments “Gonzalo… Valverde, if I remember correctly.” Lo I amHe identified himself as “our subcontractor who provided local currency”. In earlier statements to the prosecution at the trial stage, the witness specifically pointed to the now absconding man. Gonzalo Monteverde A person who used companies to bring money into Peru.

““We gave him dollars in a checking account and he gave us soles, the local currency in Peru.” He explained this method during the trial. The money was intended to be used for “restricted payments” in Peru. He said he knew the companies used in Peru for that but couldn’t remember their names.

At the end of the trial, the witness replied that the money for ‘Box 2’ was generated by “financial activities, over-invoicing of works (over-expenditure)”, which was another name for responsibility. It was the purpose of these “Create Free Resources for the Structured Functional Sector.” Unaccounted or illegal payments were made through these “free sources”.

In response to subsequent questions from the defendant’s counsel, Da Rocha Soares stated that they discovered whether the payee was reached through superiors. He explained that if the money didn’t come, they would demand it. “If they don’t claim, they’re paid” he said.

The witness examination ended at 11:11 this Thursday morning. The trial was over in a few minutes. Proceedings will resume next Thursday, September 21, with the testimony of another Brazilian witness: Sergio Noguera Panicola, former Secretary General of CONIRSA, a consortium formed by Odebrecht and the Peruvian companies Graña y Montero, ICCGSA and JJC.

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