Offshore drilling company, Seadrill Ltd., has been targeted in the ongoing criminal investigation by the Federal Police of Brazil – Operation Car Wash – which began in March 2014.
Seadrill confirmed on Wednesday that its subsidiary Seadrill Serviços de Petroleo, Ltda was served with a search and seizure warrant from the Federal Police in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil as part of the latest phase of the investigations.
“Seadrill is cooperating fully with the ongoing investigation,” the company said.
Reports indicate that Brazilian and Dutch police executed dozens of search warrants on Wednesday as part of the probe into Seadrill and Malaysia’s Sapura Energy Bhd.
In a statement, federal prosecutors in Brazil said they had carried out 25 searches, concentrated in Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo, while Dutch police had also carried out searches as part of a parallel investigation into the matter.
To date, Operation Car Wash has resulted in more than a thousand warrants of various types. According to the Operation Car Wash task force, investigations implicate administrative members of the state-owned oil company Petrobras, politicians from Brazil’s largest parties (including presidents of the Republic), presidents of the Chamber of Deputies and the Federal Senate, state governors, and businessmen from large Brazilian companies.
The Federal Police consider it the largest corruption investigation in the country’s history.
