legacies of PSDBas Rodoanel works it’s yes metro expansion in the capital tarnished the almost 30 years of the party’s dynasty in Government of São Paulo🇧🇷 Despite the complaints, the toucans remained without conviction in almost all lawsuits.
The most notorious cases occurred mainly during the administration of Jose Serragovernor from 2007 to 2010, and Geraldo Alckminelected in 2010 and re-elected in 2014.
However, accusations as in the case of the train cartel, for example, extend from the government of Mario Covas to the current head of Palácio dos Bandeirantes, Rodrigo Garcia🇧🇷 The latter, at the time, acted as Secretary of Economic Development on Alckmin’s team.
Main informer of the train cartel, the then director of the German company Siemens in the country, Everton Rheinheimer, told the Federal Police that he dealt with Rodrigo personally with bribes🇧🇷 The governor denies it.
“Rodrigo Garcia has already been acquitted at the STF for false accusations regarding the São Paulo subway. The Government of SP clarifies that there was no corruption scandal during the current administration”, says a note sent by the Communication of the Palácio dos Bandeirantes.
O train cartel came to light in mid-2013 after Rheinheimer and Siemens signed a leniency agreement with Cade (Administrative Council for Economic Defense) to denounce the existence of a cartel to rig bids in São Paulo and Brasília. According to the company, the government would have given the endorsement to the collusion, and the scheme would have started in 1998, in the Covas administration, and lasted until 2008.
The Public Ministry says, in the complaint made in March 2014, that the cartel of 12 companies combined the results of tenders for the delivery of trains for line 5-lilac, expansion of line 2-green, in addition to the maintenance and sale of trains to CPTM .
In July 2019, the Cade condemned 11 companies, including Alstom and Bombardier, and 42 employees paying millions of reais and fines. By the leniency agreement, Siemens escaped the sanction.
Alstom, for having participated in virtually all contracts, was prohibited from participating in federal, state and municipal public administration tenders for five years.
wanted by Sheet, Siemens states that it “proactively shared with Cade and public authorities the results of its internal audit”. Alstom, which incorporated Bombardier in 2021, declined to comment.
At the Supreme Court, a criminal action was filed by the First Panel in February 2015🇧🇷 The case began to be discussed in 2014, when Minister Marco Aurélio Mello joined the queue and voted to dismiss it in September, stating that the witnesses did not present evidence against Rodrigo and José Aníbal (PSDB), former federal deputy and Serra’s deputy in the Senate, both cited in Rheinheimer’s denunciation.
“Alexandre de Moraes advocated for Rodrigo Garcia in this case and managed to prevent the investigations from going ahead”, said elected deputy Simão Pedro (PT), one of the authors of the denouncement of the scheme.
Moraes, who has been a court minister since 2017, served as a lawyer between 2010 and 2014. In January 2015, a month before the STF filed the cartel lawsuit, he resigned from defending Rodrigo when he took over the Public Security Secretariat of São Paulo, in the Alckmin administration.
“In my opinion, the Public Prosecutor’s Office did not delve into investigations in relation to politicians and public agents and prefers to make an indemnity agreement with companies in exchange for punishment”, says Pedro.
In a note, Aníbal’s advisory stated that the “investigation was archived by the STF, since there was nothing against José Aníbal, as the whistleblower himself confessed.”
The toucan administrations were also in the sights of Lava Jato. In July 2018, the Federal Public Ministry denounced 14 peoplebeing employees of companies responsible for building the northern section of the Rodoanel and eight employees of Dersa, the state-owned company for Road Development.
Among them, the then president of the Class, Laurence Casagrande Lourenço, who was also Secretary of Logistics and Transport under Alckmin, was imprisoned for almost three months. When contacted by the report, Lourenço’s lawyer said that his client would not comment.
The MPF claims that amendments were made to contracts worth almost BRL 480 million (BRL 800 million updated) for interventions that had already been foreseen. Justice accepted the complaint, and the process has been underway since 2018 under secrecy.
To PF, Lawrence said thatduring the works, blocks of rocks appeared in proportions greater than those foreseen in the basic project.
Márcio Elias Rosa, Alckmin’s lawyer, wrote to Sheet that the former governor did not take any kind of action in relation to the train cartel and the Rodoanel.
“I ordered the annulment of bids and guided and continue to guide my public action with unrestricted respect for ethics and the public interest”, says Alckmin.
In another phase of Lava Jato, the MPF accused José Serra of having used his influence during the negotiation of the São Paulo Government contract for construction of the Rodoanel to receive payments from Odebrecht. The toucan would have received R$ 4.5 million between 2006 and 2007 and about R$ 23 million between 2009 and 2010, says the complaint of July 2020.
Almost a year later, the minister Gilmar Mendes ordered the dismissal of the criminal action and annulled search and seizure warrants and breaches of secrecy. According to Mendez, the case has already been in the Supreme Court and was referred to the Electoral Justicebut the Federal Court of São Paulo did not comply with the decision of the STF by continuing with the investigations.
In a note, Serra’s press office says that none of the accusations prospered in court due to the lack of any evidence of illegality or receipt of undue advantages over 50 years of public life. “Honesty and austerity in relation to public spending have been the hallmarks of Serra’s work over the years”, says the advisory.
Also in 2020 the Lava Jato Eleitoral asked for Alckmin’s indictment for suspected money laundering, electoral slush funds and passive corruption in the investigation in which he investigated Odebrecht donations.
According to investigations, Alckmin allegedly received R$ 11.3 million from the construction company, not accounted for in his campaigns for the state government in 2010 and 2014. He became a defendant in July 2020, and the action resulted in the blocking of his assets up to the amount of R$ 11.3 million.
On the second (19), Justice Ricardo Lewandowski ordered the suspension of the action considering that the prosecution used evidence from the Odebrecht leniency agreement that had already been invalidated in decisions against other defendants, including the president-elect, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT).
“Geraldo did not receive, did not request or authorize third parties to receive undeclared donations. It would not even make sense, because the campaigns had a surplus”, wrote Elias Rosa.
For jurist Wálter Fanganiello Maierovitch, a retired judge, the slowness and lack of completion of actions are the result of the influence of politicians, especially in the superior courts.
“A caste was created in Brazil that has privileged jurisdiction within a system of politicized Supreme Courts. It is necessary to rethink the Judiciary, including the model for choosing ministers [indicados pelo Presidente da República].”
According to political scientist Marco Antonio Carvalho Teixeira, toucan administrations also took advantage of an alignment with deputies in these almost 30 years. “In Alesp [Assembleia Legislativa de São Paulo], the government has always had a solid majority. The chance of any complaint, CPI, succeeding is zero.”
This alignment should follow the management of Tarcisio de Freitas🇧🇷 Of the 94 state deputies elected by Alesp, 63 supported Tarcísio’s election.
train cartel
The case: a cartel of 12 companies shared bids and signed contracts such as the construction of the 5-lilac line and the extension of the 2-green line, in addition to the sale and maintenance of trains between 1998 and 2008. Siemens, one of the companies in the cartel, reported to the Cade that the government endorsed the formation of the cartel
How are you doing: the First Panel of the STF archived the investigations in 2015, after the then rapporteur Marco Aurélio Mello considered that the involvement of members of the government, including Rodrigo Garcia, who was Secretary of Energy in Alckmin’s administration, was not proven
Rodoanel north section
The case: the Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office denounced 14 people, including seven employees of the state-owned company Dersa (Desenvolvimento Rodoviária S/A), for participating in a diversion of BRL 625 million through the inclusion of additives in the contract signed between the government and the construction company OAS to the northern section of the Rodoanel
How are you doing: the Justice accepted the complaint, in October 2018, and the process is under secrecy. The then governor Alckmin is not part of the criminal action, only Dersa employees were denounced
Rodoanel south section
The case: Lava Jato denounced Serra for transnational money laundering during the work on the Rodoanel Sul. Odebrecht would have paid BRL 4.5 million to him through offshore between 2006 and 2007 and BRL 23 million between 2009 and 2010
How are you doing: the criminal action was filed at the STF, in 2021, by minister Gilmar Mendes, who ordered the annulment of search and seizure warrants and breaches of secrecy in Serra
Lava Jato
The case: Alckmin was indicted by Lava Jato Eleitoral on suspicion of committing crimes of passive corruption, electoral ideological falsehood and money laundering. Odebrecht executives said they transferred BRL 11.3 million through slush funds in Alckmin’s campaign for the Government of São Paulo in 2010 and 2014
How are you doing: Alckmin became a defendant in the electoral criminal action, in 2020, and on December 19, 2022, Minister Ricardo Lewandowski ordered the process to be suspended
