Brazil arrests Temer's top aide and a former minister in Operation Car Wash corruption investigation

Record ID: 878317

  • Title: Brazil arrests Temer's top aide and a former minister in Operation Car Wash corruption investigation
  • Date: 6th June 2017
  • Summary: BRASILIA, BRAZIL (FILE - AUGUST 31, 2016) (REUTERS) ***WARNING CONTAINS FLASH PHOTOGRAPHY*** VARIOUS OF TEMER DURING INAUGURATION
  • Embargoed: 20th June 2017 20:58
  • Keywords: fraud arrest soccer stadium former tourism minister Brazil World Cup probe corruption Police
  • Location: BRASILIA; NATAL, RIO GRANDE DO NORTE AND SAO PAULO, BRAZIL
  • City: BRASILIA; NATAL, RIO GRANDE DO NORTE AND SAO PAULO, BRAZIL
  • Country: Brazil
  • Topics: Crime/Law/Justice,Crime
  • Reuters ID: LVA0056K55743
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: In three days, Brazilian police have arrested two top officials close to President Michel Temer in the ongoing Operation Car Wash corruption investigation, even as the country's top electoral court opens a trial that could force Temer from office.
    On Tuesday (June 6), authorities arrested former tourism minister Henrique Eduardo Alves in a corruption probe into the construction of a soccer stadium in northeastern Brazil for the 2014 World Cup and also in connection to alleged fraud at a state-run bank.
    Alves resigned in June as Temer's tourism minister after accusations that he had taken bribes.
    His arrest comes three days after police arrested former Brazilian lawmaker Rodrigo Rocha Loures, a close aide and friend of Temer, at his home on Saturday (June 3).
    Loures was seen in a video released in May carrying a bag with 500,000 reais ($154,000) in cash that prosecutors say was a bribe from executives of meatpacking giant JBS SA, whose plea bargain testimony has implicated Temer and other politicians in graft.
    Rocha Loures, a businessman turned politician, is expected to seek a plea bargain deal with prosecutors which could damage the president's case that he did nothing illegal.
    There was no immediate response to calls for comment from representatives for Alves.
    Alves' was arrested on the same day that Temer's administration is being threatened by the start of an electoral court trial over the alleged use of illicit money to fund former President Dilma Rousseff's 2014 election campaign. Temer was Rousseff's vice-presidential running mate.
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