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Did corruption lead to the construction of Rio 2016 BMX and mountain bike venues?

Brazil’s attorney general is investigating charges that a construction company paid bribes to a legislator to secure contracts to build the Rio de Janeiro 2016 BMX and mountain bike venues.

Attorney General Rodrigo Janot accused Eduardo Cunha, who is the speaker of the lower house in Brazil’s two-chamber legislature, of receiving $475,000 from the construction company OAS to use “his position as a lawmaker to craft business-friendly legislation that was against the public interest.” OAS has had a hand in building the BMX, mountain bike and canoeing venues, along with other infrastructure projects.

Janot’s report alleged that the legislation gave tax exempt status to Olympic-related construction works and foreign goods needed for the Olympic Games. OAS is only one company that might have paid off Cuhna.

While OAS had yet to comment on the accusations, Cunha has characterized them as “ridiculous.” Cunha has been at the centre of an effort to impeach President Dilma Rousseff after being elected to speaker earlier this year.

It is now up to the Brazilian Supreme Court to decide whether to accept the case.

The charges are an embarrassment to the chief executive officer of Rio’s Olympic organizing committee, Sidney Levy, who assured the world that Rio 2016 would be corruption free. In early December International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach revealed that the IOC would start auditing money it gives to Olympic Games’ organizing committees, having given the Rio committee $1.5 billion.

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