“They blame Carlos Polit, so they don’t go to jail,” Srebnick told the jurors.

Polit, who after his arrest was released on an $18 million bond and lives in a condo high-rise along the Miami River, wielded tremendous sway over Odebrecht after it was found to have committed contractural and technical violations on the $320 million power-plant project built near an active volcano in central Ecuador called Minas de San Francisco, according to federal prosecutors.

Polit’s position, which was created to combat the fraudulent use of government funds, required him to sign off on public budgets that prosecutors say enabled him to demand more than $10 million in bribery payments from Odebrecht. In exchange, prosecutors contend, Polit made government fines go away and allow the engineering firm to continue working in Ecuador.

The case, probed by Homeland Security Investigations, is built upon an electronic trail of financial records and cooperating witnesses.

One of them took the witness stand after opening statements Tuesday. Jose Santos, who worked as an engineering and construction executive at Odebrecht for 38 years, testified that he was asked to resolve the company’s huge fines with the Ecuadorian government over the power-plant fiasco and then found himself being extorted by Polit.

Santos said Polit offered Odebrecht an ultimatum: pay comptroller an initial $6 million bribe to make the fines disappear or never work in Ecuador again.

Asked by a prosecutor if he paid Polit a series of cash bribes, Santos testified: “Yes, I did.”

Santos also acknowledged that he pleaded guilty in Brazil in 2016 to the Polit-related bribery charges and was sentenced to more than two years of house arrest and community service along with a fine. But he said he had not begun the sentence.

Wanted in Ecuador

Polit also faces an extradition request by Ecuador, where he was tried and convicted in absentia because he had left for Miami before the 2018 trial in his native country. His son, John, who had also worked as securities broker in Miami, was convicted in Ecuador of being an accomplice in connection with his father’s case. But his conviction in Ecuador was overturned in 2020.

Five years ago, McClatchy-Miami Herald and other news media collaborated on an investigative project that zeroed in on Odebrecht’s parallel off-books accounting system. Leaked documents showed links between Polit’s Miami-based son and a U.S. shell company, Ventures Overseas LLC, which became a pass-through for the alleged bribery payments by Odebrecht.

The Polits were the focus of a McClatchy-Miami Herald investigation that showed the son had taken on mortgages on several pricey properties in the Miami area, including a luxurious home in Cocoplum, that had earlier been purchased outright.

Venture Overseas was at the end of a chain of financial transfers between anonymous shell companies that began with one controlled by Odebrecht S.A. called Kleinfeld Services. Company officials have admitted Kleinfeld was one of several used in an off-books accounting system called Drousys that was used to pay bribes in exchange for public works contracts.

The Polits were convicted in Ecuador in 2018 on extortion charges that involved receiving bribe money from Kleinfeld. They insisted they were the targets of political persecution.

Berger, the prosecutor, highlighted all of these companies and connections during his opening statement on Tuesday, pointing out that the Odebrecht executive, Santos, asked Polit what he was doing with all the bribery cash payments.

According to the prosecutor, Polit told Santos: “My son in Miami makes the money disappear.”

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