![\"Joseph](\"https:\/\/www.businesspundit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/Joseph-Safra.jpg\")
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Brazilian prosecutors on Thursday charged Joseph <\/span>Safra<\/span>, the world’s richest banker, with a scheme aimed at\u00a0paying bribes to government officials in return for waiving tax debts.<\/p>\n Prosecutors say Safra had knowledge of a 2014 plan executed by executives at his BancoSafra SA to pay $4.2 million in brides to federal tax auditors.<\/p>\n Prosecutors will present tapped phone calls between Banco Safra <\/span>executive Jo\u00e3o In\u00e1cio Puga and tax officials, the statement added.<\/p>\n Safra and his family own<\/span>\u00a0Banco Safra <\/span>SA and a number of private-banking institutions including Switzerland’s J Safra <\/span>Sarasin. The statement noted that he was not directly involved in the negotiations on the bribery plan.<\/p>\n In a separate statement, Safra<\/span>‘s investment holding company Safra <\/span>Group said the allegations “are unfounded,” adding, “There have not been any improprieties by any of the businesses of The Safra <\/span>Group.”<\/p>\n No Safra <\/span>Group representative “offered any inducement to any public official and the Group did not receive any benefit in the judgment of the tribunal,” the Safra <\/span>Group statement said.<\/p>\n The charges are part of a larger policy operation known as “Operation Zealots” which is aimed at finding companies that are giving kickbacks to influencers through lobbyists.<\/p>\n The Lebanese-Brazilian billionaire, whose fortune is estimated at about $18 billion by Forbes Magazine, controls a banking and financial conglomerate that operates in 19 countries.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Brazilian prosecutors on Thursday charged Joseph Safra, the world’s richest banker, with a scheme aimed at\u00a0paying bribes to government officials in return for waiving tax debts. Prosecutors say Safra had knowledge of a 2014 plan executed by executives at his BancoSafra SA to pay $4.2 million in brides to federal tax auditors. Prosecutors will present […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":48,"featured_media":65571,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,26],"tags":[10598,9135,10599,10597],"class_list":{"0":"post-65570","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"category-finance","9":"tag-bancosafra-sa","10":"tag-brazil","11":"tag-brazil-banking","12":"tag-joseph-safra"},"acf":[],"wps_subtitle":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businesspundit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65570","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businesspundit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businesspundit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businesspundit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/48"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businesspundit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65570"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.businesspundit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65570\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":65572,"href":"https:\/\/www.businesspundit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65570\/revisions\/65572"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businesspundit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65571"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businesspundit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65570"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businesspundit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65570"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businesspundit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65570"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}