Federal prosecutors in Brazil confirmed that they are weighing whether to open a full investigation into former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s alleged overseas lobbying efforts for the scandal-plagued construction firm Odebrecht, the nation’s biggest builder.
In an emailed statement Monday, the federal prosecutors’ office said it has 90 days to decide whether to begin a full inquiry into whether Silva engaged in “influence peddling” by allegedly swaying foreign leaders to award inflated billion-dollar contracts to Odebrecht, and by pushing Brazil’s state development bank to give the company more than $1 billion in low-interest loans since 2011, after he left office.
