Damage from Petrobras case to top $5.3bn
Damage from the gargantuan corruption scandal centered on Brazilian state oil company Petrobras could amount to as much as 20 billion reais ($5.3 billion), a lead prosecutor has warned.
Deltan Dallagnol, part of the team running Operation Car Wash, as the probe into the scandal is called, said that losses to Petrobras itself amounted to some 6.2 billion reais, but that "this is only the tip of the iceberg," AFP has quoted him as saying.
Prosecutors say that between 2004 and 2014 a network of corrupt officials, executives and politicians enriched themselves exchanging bribes for fake or padded-out contracts paid from oil company coffers.
Related schemes spread into other government entities, such as the nuclear power company.
"Looking at projections, the cost probably goes beyond 20 billion reais," Dallagnol told journalists while attending a congress in Rio de Janeiro.
The Petrobras scandal emerged last year, implicating senior politicians of the ruling Workers' Party, to which President Dilma Rousseff belongs.
President Rousseff had earlier served as president of Petrobras and minister of energy when the fraud and corruption is alleged to have taken place in the corporation.
Nevertheless, she has not been directly linked to any crime.
Thirteen senators, 22 congressmen, two governors and several former cabinet officials have also been named in the scandal.
Hundreds of thousands of Brazilians took to the streets across the country in August to protest against alleged government corruption and looming recession, calling for the resignation of President Rouseff.
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