Brazilian presidential Chief of Staff Antonio Palocci attends a ceremony in which President Dilma Rousseff announced the inclusion of diabetes and hypertension drugs as part of their program to provide medicine to the poor, in Brasilia February 3, 2011. REUTERS/Ueslei Marcelino
RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) - Brazilian police on Monday arrested Antonio Palocci, a former finance minister and presidential chief of staff in recent Workers Party governments, as a sweeping anti-corruption probe reached ever closer to the heart of the left-leaning party.
Prosecutors said in a statement on Monday that Palocci acted as a liaison between the Workers Party and Latin America's largest engineering and construction conglomerate, Odebrecht SA [ODBES.UL], between 2006 and 2013 in a political kickback scheme centred on contracts at state-led oil company Petroleo Brasileiro SA, or Petrobras.
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