In two long articles, Bloomberg news agency looks into the scope of the Odebrecht corruption schemes and how they operated in the Americas. The reporters call the “Structured Operations”, the Odebrecht bribery division, set up in Santo Domingo, “perhaps the farthest-reaching, most efficient corruption machine in modern business.”
The Bloomberg news service story tells about the scheme in which the Brazilian construction company competed for large and lucrative contracts. The formula that for years worked well for the company involved “helping” politicians who in turn would “help” the company to accumulate extra cash by purposefully overpricing projects and submitting falsified invoices. The story explains how the corruption machine eventually spun out of control, ending in the prosecution and jailing of the company’s top executive, Marcelo Odebrecht, and dozens of others around the world as the wrongdoings surfaced.
Written by Ezra Fieser, Bloomberg dedicates a separate feature to tell on Odebrecht’s Dominican operations. Santo Domingo hosted the three small offices and the conference room from where the notorious Structured Operations, the Odebrecht bribery division, channeled the funds to influence people with deciding power.
The story tells how Angel Rondon, now under pre-trial arrest, allegedly funneled Odebrecht’s money to officials who, in turn, awarded Odebrecht contracts to build highways, dams, and other projects. The story reveals that in several cases, Rondón, as established in the indictment, allegedly convinced officials to approve changes to public-works contracts after Odebrecht had already won them, thereby boosting their value by millions of dollars.”
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Bloomberg
Bloomberg
13 June 2017
