SHOCKING RIO GAMES BRIBERY PROBE
Police raid Brazil Olympics chief’s home
BRAZILIAN investigators said on Tuesday politicians and the head of the national Olympic committee arranged a US$2 million (RM10.7 million) bribe to bring the 2016 games to Rio de Janeiro, despite the city having the worst conditions to host the event.
Police in Rio raided the home of Brazil’s Olympics chief, Carlos Arthur Nuzman, after prosecutors accused him of conspiring with former state Governor Sergio Cabral, already convicted in a separate corruption case, to buy the games.
Nuzman’s lawyer, Sergio Mazzillo, said his client was innocent. Calls to Cabral’s attorney were not returned.
The legacy of South America’s first Olympics, which ended just over a year ago, has been tainted by allegations of graft.
Nearly every infrastructure project connected to the games is under investigation. Prosecutors allege that major construction firms bribed politicians and others to win contracts worth billions of dollars for the event.
Tuesday’s development drove home the stunning fall from grace of officials who sold the idea that Rio’s Olympics would transform a developing-world city through giant strides in security, infrastructure and environmental improvements.
Prosecutor Fabiana Schneider said at a news conference that what was striking about Rio winning the games was it did so despite being “the worst candidate.”
“The Olympics were used as an enormous trampoline for corruption,” Schneider said, citing billions of dollars spent on construction projects.
As part of “Operation Unfair Play,” a federal judge ordered the seizure of Nuzman’s passport and his questioning about an alleged US$2 million bribe to secure the vote of Lamine Diack, former president of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF).
Rio was announced as the winning city in 2009 at a ceremony in Copenhagen, beating out Chicago, Tokyo and Madrid. The Brazilian city lost the first vote to the Spanish capital but bounced back to win the nomination on a third ballot, by a 66-32 vote.
Brazil’s then-president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, soccer great Pele, Nuzman, Cabral and others celebrated the announcement in the Danish capital by leaping into the air, waving Brazilian flags and weeping.
In Rio, tens of thousands watched the announcement on the sands of Copacabana beach and erupted into an ear-splitting celebration rivaling the freewheeling town’s Carnival parties.
A spokesman for the IOC said the situation is of the highest interest to the body because it seeks “to protect the integrity of the candidature process and to address and sanction any infringements.” Reuters