The Federal Public Ministry of São Paulo says they have more information regarding the alleged corruption within the Brazilian swimming federation, the CBDA.
Last week, Brazilian federal police revealed that they were investigating the federation involving fraud within the federation. This week, in the Brazilian news paper “Folha de S. Paulo,” more allegations have been revealed involving suspicious payments made involving services rendered for the federation and an increase in the budget for purchasing airline tickets.
Brazilian police have filed a lawsuit to remove long-time president Coaracy Nunes from his role.
An attorney for the CBDA, Marcelo Franklin, says that his side has evidence to dispute the accusations, saying that “the assumptions are wrong.”
Federal police say that they believe a company that has done much business for the CBDA, Natação Comércio de Artigos Esportivos Ltda, is a front for the corruption scandal used to divert public money into private pockets.
“The complaint is based on two totally misleading assumptions,” Franklin says. “The first is favoring a company in the bidding process. Five companies submitted proposals and when four of these companies had ties to the federation, they were eliminated.”
Franklin says that the NCAE, Ltd. won the bids because of a rule designed to limit corruption. He also says that when the other four companies were eliminated from bidding, the CBDA returned to the market and put out a new request for bids, where other companies joined.
The federal police believe that the other bidders were purposefully eliminated to benefit the alleged shell company to ensure that it won and would be in a position to funnel money into the pockets of federation officials.
The address for the company is now a pet store, but Franklin says while he does not have evidence of it being a real company yet, that he plans to produce it.
Meanwhile, one of CBDA’s most crucial sponsors, Correios, says that it is looking into suspending its sponsorship deal with the federation. Correios has requested clarification on the matter and for access to the full police complaint.
Correios, Brazil’s postal system, has been a sponsor since 1991, and the contract was valued at approximately $95 million Reais ($30 million USD) during the last inter-Olympic cycle. Correios has already had to reduce its sponsorship of Brazilian sports after a $2.1 billion Reais shortfall in 2015.
And this surprises us why?