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Brazilian Deputy Tourism Minister Frederico Silva da Costa and 37 other officials from the ministry have been arrested on corruption charges.
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| President Dilma Rousseff has lost three three high-ranking officials to corruption scandals |
The police
said they conspired to divert public money for private gain, charges they deny.
Almost 200
police took part in the operation to detain the suspects.
Mr Costa is
the third high-ranking official to leave his post over corruption allegations
since President Dilma Rousseff took power in January.
Prosecutors
said the suspects had awarded contracts at inflated prices to complicit firms
that often were not qualified to carry out the work.
The
officials were arrested in the cities of Brasilia, Sao Paulo and Macapa.
The arrests
come in the wake of allegations of corruption at the ministries of agriculture
and transport.
Prosecutors
seized a number of computers at the agriculture ministry on Monday, and
Agriculture Minister Wagner Rossi has been asked to appear before an ethics
commission to answer the allegations.
Mr Rossi is
a member of the Democratic Movement Party of Brazil (PMDB), President
Rousseff's largest ally in Congress.
Last month,
Transport Minister Alfredo Nascimento and more than 20 officials resigned over
allegations of kickbacks at the ministry of transport.
Mr
Nascimento stepped down after a magazine alleged staff at his ministry were
skimming off money from federal infrastructure contracts.
And in
June, the president's chief of staff Antonio Palocci resigned after press
reports questioned his rapid accumulation of wealth.
Brazilian
paper Folha de Sao Paulo said Mr Palocci's net worth had increased 20-fold in
four years.
All have
denied any wrongdoing.
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