In the "first allegation of corruption linked to next year's Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Epoca magazine reported that construction company Carioca Engenharia allegedly bribed the speaker of the lower house of Congress in order to secure funds for a massive port area regeneration project," according to Stephen Eisenhammer of REUTERS. The report, which Epoca attributed to leaked documents, "could cause headaches for the city of Rio and its mayor Eduardo Paes who has repeatedly said he would deliver Olympic projects free of corruption, delays and cost-overruns." Porto Maravilha "is a regeneration of Rio's downtown port area that has been heralded by authorities as one of the potential great legacies of the Olympic Games." Although accounting for a fifth of the nearly R$40B ($10.3B) being spent on the games in Rio, "it is not supervised by the organizing committee of Rio 2016 as it is not an Olympic venue." A lead investigator last month said that some of the big engineering firms caught up in the Petrobras probe "very probably" broke laws against price-fixing and bribery on contracts to build Olympic venues. Rio's City Hall "did not immediately respond to requests for comment." Epoca reported that Carioca Engenharia execs said they paid R$52M ($13.4M) "to lower house speaker Eduardo Cunha" (REUTERS, 12/17).
