Lava Jato gifts $3 Billion to US Investors

Lava Jato gifts $3 Billion to US Investors

A massive payout to US investors by Petrobras, which dwarves the total confiscated, has triggered anger and concern in Brasil, whose economy is still reeling from the effects of the operation

On January 3rd the mixed ownership, Brazilian Petroleum company Petrobras, announced a the largest settlement by a foreign company ever made with North American shareholders, who claim to have lost money because of corruption inside the company. The amount that will be handed over to the American minority shareholders is larger than Petrobras’ 2017 profits, and over 6 times the amount that was confiscated. In a recent blog article, translated to English below, Brazilian Journalist Esmael Moraes argues that this could be one of reasons that the US government has been working in partnership with the Curitiba prosecutors office on the Lava Jato investigation. 

By Esmael Moraes.

There was always suspicion that the Lava Jato investigation was operating in the name of foreign interests, primarily those of the United States. The illegal, admitted collaboration between Judge Sergio Moro’s task force and Uncle Sam fostered the theory that he was acting as a double agent.  The $3 Billion USD  donation from Petrobras petroleum company to North American investors, under the guise of compensation for losses that were exacerbated by the Lava Jato investigation, is the proverbial lipstick on the underwear – the missing clue that shows it wasn’t just a conspiracy theory.

During the course of the Lava Jato investigation prosecutors returned $500 million in embezzled funds to Petrobras. The amount handed over to the North American vultures of Wall Street as compensation for the crimes, however, is 6 times larger that what was confiscated in the investigation. Even the anti-people, anti-nation Globo media network was shocked at the amount that was handed over to the Americans by the Lava Jato task force of Moro, Deltan  Dallagnol and Fernando dos Santos Lima.

On Wednesday, January 3, Senator Roberto Requiqião (PMDB-Parana), president of the National Sovereignty Front, asked if the national Attorney General was silent on this because he was part of this crime against the State that favors North American investors over the Brazilian people.  The Senator still hasn’t received an answer from this Ministry which, at least in theory, oversees the Lava Jato prosecutors.

The devil in the details is that the Lava Jato investigation hasn’t just damaged Petrobras. There is an entire production chain that it destroyed under the pretext of fighting corruption. Here are two examples: 1) the shipyards were dismantled and, consequently, the Brazilian ship building industry was destroyed; and 2) the national engineering industry was thrown out the window and the market was opened to international professionals due to Lava Jato’s paralyzation of the largest Brazilian construction companies.

You can add Petrobras’ $3 Billion donation to North American shareholders to the destruction of the construction and ship building industries and the millions of job losses that this caused. On January 3, Prosecutor Fernando dos Santos Lima, from the Lava Jato gang, hurried to remove the blame from his team, but at the same time confessed that they “were never interested in preserving jobs in Brazil”.

Millions of unemployed and a $3 Billion gift from Petrobras coffers to the Americans – is this what Lava Jato was designed for?


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