According to daily O Estado de S. Paulo, the ruling Workers Party (PT) summoned at least eleven people to participate in its failed operation to acquire a dossier that would contain proof of serious wrongdoing by key members of the opposition party PSDB (Party of Brazilian Social Democracy).
The deal was never carried out since buyers and sellers were arrested by the Brazilian Federal Police before they could even get together. And now, the police says, the documents that were to be bought by close to US$ 800,000 are practically worthless.
One of the main pieces of the dossier, a videotape showing PSDB’s gubernatorial candidate José Serra with people linked to the bloodsuckers scandal (in which ambulances were sold for extorsive prices while congressmen pocketed some change) is a news footage that can be bought for less than US$ 100.
Worst of all, the authorities guarantee, all the material assembled doesn’t put a dent into Serra’s and other opposition candidate’s reputation.
From the 11 men mentioned by the authorities six have already been identified. One of them is PT’s businessman Valdebran Padilha, who negotiated directly with businessman Luiz Antonio Vedoin to get the incriminating material. Padilha was caught in a São Paulo hotel together with lawyer and former federal police agent Gedimar Pereira Passos carrying the US$ 800,000 loot.
The police have released some of the conversation they heard in the phones they tapped with judicial authorization. Valdebran tells Vedoin in one of the transcripts, "What is happening? You still owe us some material. It is that rough tape in which you appear with I don’t know who. Send us the goods fast, man."
To which Vedoin replies, asking for the rest of the payment: "My friend, I am going to get it to you only when you deliver everything there to me. Enough! I will not be playing the clown anymore."
The federal police through the bugged phones found out that Vedoin – he has been an important piece in a congressional enquiry to expose House representatives involved in the bloodsuckers scandal, since he is the owner of the company that sold the ambulances – was charging kickbacks to keep quiet about some people or to accuse others.
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT), who is running for reelection on October 1st, commented this Friday morning, September 22, that the PT’s intelligence service "wasn’t that intelligent."
He was talking about Jorge Lorenzetti and Expedito Afonso Veloso, who worked in the Workers Party’s risk analysis area and who are accused of participating in the bungled dossier purchase.
Lula told reporters he couldn’t believe that "people with decades of career would throw everything away for something so stupid. The only thing I can think is that these people were possessed by a moment of madness when they negotiated with Vedoin."
The president, however, said that he doesn’t agree with the parallels that some people are seeing between this case and the American Watergate scandal, which ended up with Nixon’s ousting: "This has nothing to do with Watergate. This comparison makes no sense. These are two distinct things, both deplorable, but with nothing in common. The dossier case involves the purchase of material containing charges while Watergate involved tapping phones and listening to the plans of a political team".
He also discounted any effect the scandal is having on the economy: "I do not believe that this was the reason for the market to oscillate. There is a group of businessmen who fight in the media and want to see the dollar up a little, maybe 2.20 or 2.30 reais. At the moment we have a crisis in Hungary, oscillation in Ecuador and also a crisis in the United States. But the economy was never in so good of a shape."
