The account in question was opened in Heritage Swiss bank and it is known as Shellbill, the name of an offshore company created by the adman Joao Santana, former head of the PT campaigns. Both the Police and the Central Bank had suspected about the existence of such account since 2016, when Santana was arrested. But now confirmation came from the adman himself, under a leniency agreement approved by Supreme Court. He not only confirmed the account’s existence, but said to whom were the final beneficiaries: PT leaders.
“At the beginning we thought that the Swiss account was used for Joao Santana receiving for services he rendered in Brazil and abroad. However, with the information we have now, we can infer that the account would be a kind of camouflage for bribes transfers to PT’s leaders abroad, “said a source who participated in the negotiations.
“Assistance has been requested to Switzerland to track the outflow of funds from this account,” as Joao Santana did not disclose the names of the beneficiaries, but just informed they were PT’s top people . Santana was informed about the deposits and transfers by the former finance minister, Guido Mantega. Reluctant to open the story at first, Joao Santana had only acknowledged it was a covert account after the Attorney General’s office began tracking the amount that according to the agreement, should be returned to the public coffers.
Prosecutors had estimated the amount in the referred account at $ 7.5 million. At this point Santana admited that the money was not just his. At demand from crowned heads of PT, which provided the money into his account, they had to receive part of the non declared dirty money abroad. The intermediary was former finance Dilma Rousseff’s minister, Mr. Mantega. The existence of the secret account confirmas that Santana’s services to the PT went far beyond marketing services for the campaigns of former presidents, Lula and Rosseff, between 2006 and 2014.
