A source present at a Rio de Janeiro event where Arida was a speaker said he sought to calm investors in the bank and stressed that BTG Pactual is a bank run by a partnership, not by a single person.
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The scandal involves Brazil’s state-run oil company, Petrobras, and has entangled numerous country’s business and political leaders.
According to the Brazilian media, police claimed the politician was detained because he was obstructing the course of an investigation. Police had to gain Supreme Court’s authorization to make the arrest.
Officials said Amaral’s arrest surprised the Rousseff administration, which together with the Workers Party and its partners was looking to immediately name his replacement as lead senator for the governing coalition.
The Supreme Court, which has to authorise any arrests of sitting members of parliament, said Amaral was accused of obstructing investigations into the Petrobras bribes and kickbacks scheme.
Zavascki said evidence also suggested Amaral had offered 50,000 reals (£9,000) in monthly assistance for Cervero’s family, to be financed by Esteves. Prosecutors alleged Esteves also had a copy of a plea bargain prepared based on Cervero’s testimony.
It was just the latest in Brazil’s biggest corruption scandal that began unraveling previous year.
BTG Pactual confirmed that Esteves was cooperating with police. Esteves remains calm and his detention was made on a temporary basis, Antonio Carlos de Almeida Castro, his lawyer, told reporters.
Police entered the Brazilian Congress to search for documents in connection with Amaral’s arrest.
Over the past year, Esteves, 47, steered BTG Pactual through Brazil’s deepest recession in a quarter century. The purchase was widely regarded as a very bad deal for Petrobras and was investigated for overpricing. BTG Pactual also bought half of Petrobras’ Africa unit in 2013. That is the largest exposure among Brazil’s listed traded banks, according to Thomson Reuters data.
In exchange, the Petrobras executive, Nestor Cervero, would be helped to escape from Brazil to Europe, reports said.
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Esteves in 2006 sold what was then Banco Pactual to UBS Group AG for $2.6 billion. BTG Pactual has exposure to the oil & gas sector, and the arrest of its CEO is the first time the Lava Jato probe raises the earnest prospect of financial contagion …
