Macri family firm IECSA raided by authorities in connection with Odebrecht bribery case [View all]
Argentine Federal Judge Marcelo Martínez de Giorgi ordered a raid on the Buenos Aires offices of construction firms IECSA (Argentina), Odebrecht (Brazil), and Ghella (Italy) in connection with charges that the three firms conspired to run a massive bribery scheme to secure a lucrative rail tunnel contract in Buenos Aires.
IECSA, Argentina's third largest public contractor, was founded by the Argentine president's father, Francesco Macri, and was led since 2007 by the president's first cousin Ángelo Calcaterra.
Amid mounting investigations, the Macri family sold IECSA to Marcelo Mindlin, a leading electric utility executive, in March for a reported $60 million.
Members of Macri's administration and his family have also come under scrutiny over a wider scandal involving Brazil's largest builder Odebrecht, which has admitted to paying nearly $800 million in bribes across Latin America.
Odebrecht e-mails from 2010, uncovered in Brazil in February, revealed that at least $20 million in bribes were arranged jointly with IECSA in a scheme to win the rail tunnel contract.
Among the beneficiaries was Macri's longtime adviser and current intelligence chief Gustavo Arribas. Leonardo Meirelles, a Brazilian “doleiro” (bag man) for Odebrecht, testified in May that Arribas had been bribed with $850,000 in 10 transfers to two Swiss bank accounts in 2013.
The controversial $3 billion project to convert the Sarmiento commuter rail line, which connects Buenos Aires to its western suburbs, into an underground line, was awarded in June 2016 to the IECSA-Odebrecht-Ghella consortium, and is the centerpiece of President Mauricio Macri's $7 billion federal public works program.
Odebrecht CEO Marcelo Odebrecht was sentenced by a Brazilian court to a 19-year prison term in March 2016 for his role in the scandal.
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