A Brazilian judge sentenced the former head of state-run oil company Petrobras’ international division to 12 years and two months in jail for corruption and money laundering on Monday, part of the country’s largest-ever graft investigation.
Federal judge Sergio Moro said Jorge Zelada had unduly awarded U.S. company Vantage Drilling a 2009 contract with Petrobras for the drillship Titanium Explorer in exchange for bribes stashed in undeclared accounts in Monaco and Switzerland.
Moro also convicted former Petrobras executive Eduardo Musa and lobbyist Hamylton Padilha, though their sentences were reduced because they signed plea agreements.
Prosecutors said together Zelada and Musa took $31 million in bribes from Padilha and Hsin Chi Su, chief executive of Taiwanese shipping firm TMT, after Padilha and Su, a Vantage shareholder, met at the Four Seasons Hotel in New York to discuss the bribe.
Brazil Energy Insight 
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