Batista and his company are involved and pled guilty in several allegations of bribery. From September 2017 to October 2018, the Brazilian court kept Batista on remand for illegal profit on the financial market.
Operation Car-Wash In July 2016, Batista was included as a suspect in the investigations of
Operation Car Wash. The
Brazilian Federal Police (in
Portuguese,
Polícia Federal or
PF) charged him for alleged bribes made by his company,
JBS S.A., to the former president of the Brazilian parliament
Eduardo Cunha. The bribes were paid for the liberation of resources from the (FI-FGTS).
Temer bribery On 17 May 2017, the newspaper
O Globo published news that Batista provided recordings made on 7 March 2017 of a dialogue between him and the Brazilian president
Michel Temer, where Batista represents that he was paying for the silence of
Eduardo Cunha, who is currently in jail, and former target in the investigation. On 19 May 2017, JBS admitted to paying bribes to the three Brazilian presidents
Michel Temer,
Dilma Rousseff and
Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, spanning the previous 14 years. All three presidents denied accepting bribes. However, an audio recording appears to catching Temer green-lighting the Batistas to pay a monthly allowance to former House Speaker
Eduardo Cunha in exchange for his silence. JBS told prosecutors they had paid a total of $123 million in bribes to Brazilian politicians in recent years. The former head of the
Securities Commission (CVM) referred to testimony that asserted JBS had bribed 1,829 politicians. Temer alleged that JBS doctored the recording of him talking to Batista about trading shares, and accused the Batista of insider trading. JBS denied illegal trades. In return for his help making the recording, the
PF set Batista, his brother and other directors of JBS S.A. free, with a penalty of R$225 million. Batista thereupon decided to move to the US. The agreement obtained by the Batista brothers applies only to their physical persons. The Brazilian authorities are still negotiating the penalty to be applied to J&F, the
holding company superior to
JBS S.A. Prior negotiations suggested that a penalty close to R$11 billion, an amount that was refused by Batista. As of 22 May CVM was demanding $3.4 billion from JBS as part of a promised leniency deal, according to the press.
Insider trading investigation Prior to the release of the recordings, Batista and his brother
Wesley Batista sold several shares of
JBS S.A. and bought over USD 1 billion. The release of the recordings resulted in substantial reduction of the stock price of JBS S.A. shares and in the reduction of the value in the Brazilian Real. The CVM is investigating the Batista brothers for insider trading.
Prison On 10 September 2017 he was temporarily arrested by the
PF at the request of Attorney General
Rodrigo Janot. The request was accepted by Federal Supreme Court Justice
Edson Fachin. On 13 September 2017, he had the
remand ordered by the 6th Criminal Federal Court of São Paulo by the use of insider information to profit in the financial market between April and 17 May 2017, the date of disclosure of information relating to the collaboration agreement signed between J&F executives and the Attorney General's Office. On 9 March 2018, Mr. Batista was released from the Federal Police's jail in Sao Paulo, but he is not allowed to leave the country and his passport is retained by the Federal Police. ==Personal life==