Former Brascam president Jose Carlos Grubicic was sentenced to 20 months in prison in the United States, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) reported on Tuesday (12).
According to the indictment, Grubicic and other employees of Braskem and Odebrecht (now renamed Novoner) were responsible for creating a secret multimillion-dollar fund that was used to bribe public officials and political parties in Brazil, Guaranteed contract with Petrobras.
This plan must have happened between 2002 and 2014. And it was condemned by the whistleblowers of Operation Lava Jato. Former Petrobras director Paulo Roberto Costa and money changer Alberto Joseph told investigators that Brascum paid bribes to profit from the contract with Petrobras.
Braskum and Odebrecht both pleaded guilty to criminal charges by closing a settlement with a US court as part of the settlement.
The DoJ statement said, “As part of the plan, Grubisich and his associates diverted approximately $250 million from Braskem into a secret fund that Grubisich and others had been using through fraudulent contracts and secretly controlled by Braskem.” Created through offshore shell companies.”
In the trial, Grubisch pleaded guilty to violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), including conspiracy to commit record-keeping and fraud in Brascum’s financial reporting.
In addition to fines, The executive will forfeit $2.2 million and pay an additional $1 million in fines.
In November 2019, Grubisch was arrested at New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport for the scheme. At the time, a Brooklyn federal court charged him with conspiracy to commit money laundering with the risk of escape. He was released in April 2020 after posting $30 million bail.
Remember Grubisch’s arrest in the video below.
Former President of Brascom arrested in USA
Grubisch is 64 years old and headed Braskum between 2002 and 2008. The executive held several positions at Odebrecht, the company’s main shareholder. Later, he became CEO of pulp maker Eldorado Brasil, from which he left in 2017.
Prosecutors said that as chairman of Braskem, Grubicich allegedly helped cover up the scheme, falsified the company’s books and signed false certificates to the US capital markets regulator, the SEC.
In 2016 Braskam and Odebrecht agreed to pay a total of $6.9 billion in a settlement with US, Brazilian and Swiss officials to settle bribery allegations.
