Brazil graft probe widens as Senate leader, billionaire bank CEO are arrested

Sao Paulo

THE chief executive of Brazil's biggest independent investment bank and the leading senator in the governing coalition were arrested on Wednesday on suspicion of obstructing the country's most sweeping corruption investigation ever.

The detention of such prominent power brokers on orders from the Supreme Court raised the stakes dramatically in a bribery scandal that started with state-run oil company Petrobras and now threatens the heights of Brazilian banking and politics.

The arrest of André Esteves, the billionaire CEO and controlling shareholder of BTG Pactual SA and Brazil's most influential dealmaker, sent the bank's listed shares into a dive that wiped out a fifth of its market value and raised red flags at the…