Eduardo Cunha, former lower house speaker who was expelled from office, being investigated for allegedly taking bribes to liberate funds from state bank

Eduardo Cunha, the Brazilian politician who orchestrated the impeachment of the country’s first female president, Dilma Rousseff, has been arrested on corruption charges.

Federal police detained the former speaker of the lower house in Brasilia on Wednesday and executed a search warrant at his home in Rio de Janeiro.

Compared by some to Frank Underwood from House of Cards, Cunha also has been accused of taking up to 116.5m reais ($37m) in bribes as part of the Operation Car Wash investigation into mammoth corruption at state oil giant Petrobras.

The arrest was ordered by federal judge Sergio Moro, who has gained celebrity in Brazil by leading that probe, which has ensnared dozens of leading politicians.

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Moro has been investigating Cunha for months but could only arrest him after he was expelled from the chamber of deputies last month, and lost his parliamentary immunity.

“[His freedom] posed a risk to the investigation of the case, to public order, as well as the concrete possibility of that he would flee due to the availability of hidden funds abroad, in addition to his dual nationality (Cunha is Italian and Brazilian),” federal prosecutors said in a statement.

The statement quoted Moro, who said: “Until there is full traceability of money, there is a greater risk that he will flee, since the accused could use illegal funds to facilitate his escape and refuge abroad.”

The court order, signed by Moro on Tuesday, allows for his indefinite detention while the investigation continues. However, he can appeal to the supreme court to be freed.

The reviled evangelical politician, 58, played a crucial role in the impeachment of Rousseff in August. As the speaker of the chamber of deputies, he initiated proceedings against her. Rousseff, who was not accused of personally enriching herself, has claimed that Cunha and his allies were motivated by her refusal to shutdown Operation Car Wash.

Rousseff’s successor, and her former vice-president, Michel Temer is of the same Brazilian Democratic Movement (PMDB) party as Cunha but has distanced himself. Cunha, who built his powerbase on knowing the secrets of others, is said to be writing a book.

After his removal from congress by 450 votes to 10, he was banned from politics for eight years, a punishment more severe than that handed to Rousseff, who was ejected from office but – in an unprecedented move – was allowed to keep her political rights.

Cunha is now being investigated for a wide range of allegations, including taking bribes relating to Petrobras and Caixa Economica Federal, a state bank. He is said to have stashed $2.3m in Swiss bank accounts but prosecutors believe that is a fraction of the total.

Credit card statements, leaked by prosecutors, showed Cunha and his family spent out $40,000 on a nine-day family holiday in Miami at the end of 2013, then went on shopping and restaurant sprees in Paris, New York and Zurich. Cunha and his wife are also said to own a fleet of eight luxury cars, including a Porsche, which were registered under the name of Jesus.com and C3 Productions.

He originally rose to notoriety as a radio host after converting to the Assembly of God, one of Brazil’s biggest evangelical churches. He was elected to congress in 2003 and became speaker in 2015. He is consistently one of the most disliked politicians in Brazil and “Cunha out” has become a popular slogan, summing up widespread disgust at the political class.

Opposition politicians predicted if Cunha made a plea bargain with prosecutors, the government could fall. “Eduardo Cunha has just been arrested,” Lindbergh Farias of Rousseff’s Workers’ party told the senate. “And I sincerely hope he makes a deal. If he makes a deal, the government of Michel Temer will not last a day.”