Odebrecht paid US$27.7m in bribes in Colombia: prosecutor

[BOGOTA] Brazil's Odebrecht paid more than US$27.7 million in bribes in Colombia, including $11.1 million the United States has identified, a prosecutor said Tuesday.

Four senators were under investigation for allegedly taking bribes related to infrastructure contracts in excess of US$27 million, prosecutor Nestor Martinez told a briefing.

He said that among the graft cases, he was able to infer that Odebrecht paid US$11 million to win the contract for a highway in the north of the country.

Mr Martinez said senators Bernardo Miguel Elias, Musa Besaile, Plinio Olano and Antonio Guerra de la Espriella were being investigated for benefiting from the payments.

Odebrecht has acknowledged to US investigators that it distributed US$11.1 million in bribes in Colombia.

Electoral authorities are also investigating whether Odebrecht was involved in funding the presidential campaigns of Juan Manuel Santos or Oscar Ivan Zuluaga, his rival in the 2014 election.

The graft scandal linked to multinational Odebrecht has rocked several Latin American countries.

AFP