The speaker of Brazil’s lower house of Congress, a key figure in efforts to impeach President Rousseff, hid about £10 million of illegal funds in overseas bank accounts, prosecutors have said.
Eduardo Cunha, who is empowered to rule on whether and when to press ahead with the impeachment of the beleaguered president, is accused of taking millions of dollars in bribes in the Petrobras oil scandal, and of hiding his undeclared funds in Swiss accounts.
Supporters of the government are pushing to have Mr Cunha removed from his powerful position, but some fear the mounting accusations may actually make him speed up impeachment proceedings against Mrs Rousseff.
“There is sufficient proof that the foreign bank accounts were not declared and that at least in relation to Eduardo Cunha the money was the result of crimes,” the prosecutor’s office said, adding that his overseas accounts had been frozen. “His estimated holdings . . . were approximately $16 million.”
The Petrobras case, in which government and industry figures are accused of enriching themselves via corruption in the oil giant, has shaken confidence in the government just as a decade of economic growth ended in a painful recession, and has led to Mrs Rousseff’s approval ratings shrinking to single figures.