Brazilian ex-billionaire Eike Batista surrenders to Rio police

Fallen tycoon Eike Batista, who personified Brazil's economic boom and once boasted he'd become the world's richest man, was arrested Monday at Rio de Janeiro's airport after returning to face corruption charges.

Batista, who rose to become his country's wealthiest person and number seven in the world, with a fortune of $34.5 billion reported by Bloomberg in 2012, flew in from New York and walked immediately to a waiting police SUV.

The 60-year-old former oil and mining magnate is alleged to have paid a $16.5 million bribe to ex-Rio de Janeiro state governor Sergio Cabral, who is already behind bars for allegedly taking bribes over World Cup and Olympics infrastructure projects.

As a brash, big-spending entrepreneur with a playboy lifestyle, Batista symbolized Brazil's surge to economic power under then-president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. His downfall now represents a new landmark in a series of sprawling but interconnected corruption scandals enveloping much of Brazil's elite, including Lula himself.

Demonstrating the judiciary's resolve in that campaign, Supreme Court President Carmen Lucia on Monday said she would allow the use of testimony by executives from the Odebrecht construction company in a massive bribery and embezzlement case centered on state oil company Petrobras.

The construction executives gave a mountain of what is expected to be politically explosive evidence as part of a plea bargain with prosecutors probing the Petrobras scandal. The contents of the evidence remains secret, but leaks have pointed to current President Michel Temer being implicated.

For Brazilians sick of top-to-bottom corruption in Latin America's biggest economy, every high-profile development in the anti-corruption fight is a cause to cheer.

Globo television broadcast extensive live coverage of Batista's arrival on a commercial flight from New York and his transfer under escort to a medical center to undergo exams.

He was then sent next to the Ary Franco prison in Rio which, like many in Brazil, is seriously overcrowded. It was not clear yet whether the ex-billionaire would get any special privileges.

- Luxury cars, boats, planes -

The cross-border police agency Interpol last week issued a "red notice" alert for Batista after Brazilian police searched the tycoon's home in Rio.

Late Sunday he told Globo television from JFK airport in New York that he had decided to fly back voluntarily.

"I am returning to respond to the judiciary, as is my duty," he said, promising to "clear things up."

A former speedboat racer who reached seventh place on Forbes magazine's rich list in 2012 and even vowed to become the world's richest person, Batista indulged heavily in his taste for the high life. He had a palatial Rio residence and loved showing off his $500,000 Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren, planes and a helicopter.

But his empire, boosted by billions of dollars in loans from the Brazilian national development bank, was hit by plunging commodity prices and abruptly unravelled with the collapse of his oil company OGX in 2013.

- Corruption whirlpool -

Batista's disgrace illustrates the seemingly bottomless pit of corruption scandals bringing down Brazil's rich and powerful.

At the epicenter is the Petrobras scandal in which executives and politicians collaborated to embezzle from the oil company and exchange sweetheart contracts for bribes -- paid both to individual politicians and to political parties.

Already the roster of the accused or charged reads like a Who's Who of the Brazilian establishment, including Lula, major senators and the former speaker of the lower house of Congress.

A new wave of allegations is expected to emerge from the Odebrecht testimony, likened by analysts to a ticking bomb. Among those being fingered by executives in their plea bargain testimony, Brazilian media reports say, is President Temer who allegedly took millions of dollars in illegal donations.

The Supreme Court president's decision to accept the Odebrecht testimony was seen as an important reaffirmation of the judiciary's determination to pursue the case after the death in a plane crash this month of the court justice, Teori Zavascki, who had been overseeing the matter.