During the cross-examination of José Conceição Santos, a former Odebrecht executive in Ecuador, a new route for paying bribes was revealed.
From Miami, Florida. On the second day of the trial against Carlos Pólit in the United States, José Conceição Santos, a former Odebrecht executive in Ecuador, gave more details about the bribery scheme that would have worked in Ecuador.
Conceição Santos’ testimony began on the afternoon of Tuesday, April 9, 2024 and continued today with the last part of the Prosecutor’s interrogation and the beginning of the defense’s cross-examination, led by lawyer Howard Srebnick.
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Pólit’s defense had objected to Conceição’s presence. They question him because, until now, he has not been prosecuted nor has he served a prison sentence, although he has signed cooperation agreements with the United States, Brazil and Peru.
A day earlier, the Brazilian admitted to having paid some USD 12 million in bribes to Pólit. This amount is higher than what the Ecuadorian justice system had investigated and which had been made public.
During Conceição’s testimony, the name of former vice president Jorge Glas came up again. The payments made by Odebrecht to his uncle, Ricardo Rivera, were already published in Ecuador, but now this trial reveals more details.
The company in Barcelona
During cross-examination, Pólit’s lawyer showed several records of payments from Odebrecht’s Structural Operations Division, as the “bribery department” was known. There appears a payment with the code ‘TIO’ , which according to Conceição Santos was used for payments to former Vice President Jorge Glas through his uncle, Ricardo Rivera.
In the receipt with code C.10.1460, delivered as defense evidence, a payment dated July 27, 2010 to the company Cosmmac Media Mercado SL ., with an address in the city of Barcelona, is recorded under the code ‘TIO’.
The payment is for USD 240,000 and had been made to ING Bank in Amsterdam.
This company had already been mentioned in the investigations. According to El Universo publications, it is a firm related to Telconet , by Tomislav Topic.
Pólit’s defense showed this evidence along with two other receipts with the code ‘MIAMI’, which was used for the former comptroller, according to Conceição Santos.
There are two payments, for USD 400,000 and USD 200,000 registered for ‘Miami’ but paid, according to the document, to the company Draniston Limited of the Bahamas. This firm would be related to the lawyer Carlos Pareja Cordero and had already appeared in the Odebrecht processes in Ecuador.
According to Conceição Santos, Carlos Pareja’s company was used to pay Alexis Mera and two other Petroecuador officials.
But Conceição assured that Draniston has no relationship with Pólit. So he could not explain why these records appear in the name ‘ Miami ‘.