Brazil court returns massive embezzled funds to Petrobras

RIO DE JANEIRO, Dec. 7 (Xinhua) -- The Brazilian justice system returned on Thursday 654 million reais (198.7 million U.S. dollars) in formerly embezzled funds to state oil company Petrobras, prosecutor Deltan Dallagnol announced.

These funds had been previously embezzled by the corruption ring that blighted the company between 2004 and 2014.

This latest increment brings to 1.476 billion reais (448.5 million U.S. dollars) the total funds Petrobras has covered from the corruption ring, made up of former executives, politicians and business partners.

At a press conference, Dallagnol said that Petrobras was expected to receive about 10.8 billion reais (3.28 billion U.S. dollars) in total recovered funds.

This amount was reached through 163 collaboration agreements with individuals under investigation and another 10 with companies involved in the embezzlement.

"This is the greatest return of public funds registered in the history of Brazil as the result of a criminal investigation," explained Dallagnol.

The Petrobras case, which was revealed in 2014, unveiled the largest corruption ring in Brazilian history.

The country's main construction conglomerates split contracts from Petrobras, artificially inflated the prices, and split the difference with politicians and executives at the oil firm. Enditem