Marcelo Odebrecht, sentenced to 19 years for money laundering and corruption, said he warned suspended president in 2015 of discovery of illegal transfers

This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

Marcelo Odebrecht, the former chief executive of Latin America’s largest construction company, will admit in plea bargain testimony that he personally oversaw illegal campaign donations for Dilma Rousseff in 2010 and 2014, the newspaper Folha de São Paulo said on Tuesday.

The newspaper said Odebrecht will acknowledge having warned the suspended Brazilian president on 26 May 2015 in Mexico that prosecutors were about to discover illegal transfers to Rousseff’s re-election strategist, João Santana.

Odebrecht was arrested 24 days later as police deepened an investigation on a vast kickback scheme at the state-run oil company, Petrobras.

Folha said that under the terms of the plea agreement Odebrecht will testify that Rousseff did not pay attention to his warning.

Folha did not say how it obtained that information.

Rousseff confirmed in a statement to the press that she met with Odebrecht in May 2015 in Mexico but said she never discussed campaign donations with him.

A spokeswoman at Odebrecht’s corporate offices declined to comment on the newspaper report.

In Brazil, plea bargain testimony to prosecutors is confidential until approved by a judge. The strongest signal Odebrecht was seeking to collaborate came on 2 June, when a federal judge, Sérgio Moro, suspended one of several lawsuits against Odebrecht executives for 30 days.

Odebrecht, the scion of the family that controls the company, formally known as Odebrecht SA, was sentenced to 19 years in prison after being convicted of corruption and money laundering in the Petrobras case. Under Brazilian law, plea bargain deals to reduce jail time can take place after sentencing in certain cases.

As a consequence of the Petrobras-focused corruption investigation, known in Brazil as lava jato (“car wash”), many of Odebrecht’s 15 subsidiaries are refinancing up to 35bn reais ($10.4bn) in loans and stepping up asset sales.

Rousseff was suspended last month to face a senate trial over allegedly breaking budget laws. She has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.

