Brazilian police Wednesday arrested 44 people charged with embezzling money from a government fund, including 14 mayors, in the states of Minas Gerais and Bahia.
The arrests also included a federal court judge, nine private attorneys, four municipal attorneys, four employees of the judiciary, the manager of a government bank and a lobbyist.
According to investigations, which started eight months ago, the arrested embezzled at least 200 million reais (119 million U.S. dollars) from the municipalities' share in the revenues from the income tax and the tax on industrialized products, both levied by the federal government.
Some 500 agents took part in the operations on Wednesday.
Source:Xinhua
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