Andre Esteves, the brash banker who once joked his firm’s name, Grupo BTG Pactual, stood for ‘better than Goldman,’ became the latest high-profile executive dragged into Brazil’s widening corruption scandal.
The 47-year-old billionaire was arrested Wednesday in Rio de Janeiro, along with Senator Delcidio Amaral, police said. Esteves allegedly sought an agreement with Amaral to interfere with testimony from a jailed former executive of oil producer Petroleo Brasileiro SA, according to a court document.
Esteves made a splash on the international financial stage — and became Brazil’s youngest self-made billionaire — when he sold Pactual to UBS for $2.6 billion in 2006. He and partners bought it back three years later and set off on an expansion, snapping up businesses including the Swiss private-banking unit of Assicurazioni Generali SpA. The firm sold shares to the public in 2012.
Brazil Energy Insight 
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