Brazil police sweep targets Rousseff's campaigner, Globo says

SAO PAULO/RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) - Brazilian police on Monday launched a new round of arrests and seizures targeting both the manager of President Dilma Rousseff's successful election campaigns and the country's largest engineering group in the latest stage of nation's worst corruption probe, Globo TV reported. More than 300 officers are conducting searches and arrests in the cities of São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Salvador, the police said in a statement, without elaborating. The police were carrying out two preventive and six temporary prison warrants in the so-called 23rd phase of "Operation Car Wash" probe. Globo TV's news morning program said Monday's raids included an arrest warrant for Jõao Santana, Rousseff's campaign manager and who was currently out of the country. Nicknamed the "maker of presidents", Santana, 63, also advised Rousseff's predecessor Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in his re-election bid in 2012. According to TV Globo, some of the raids were also aimed at Grupo Odebrecht, an engineering conglomerate linked to the Car Wash investigation. The police will hold a news conference at 10:00 a.m. local time (13:00 GMT) to detail the operation. Immediate efforts to reach Santana and Odebrecht's officials for comment were unsuccessful. The nationwide Car Wash operation began uncovering kickbacks and influence-peddling in state companies nearly two years ago. Dozens of executives and politicians have been arrested or are under investigation on suspicion of overcharging state-controlled Petróleo Brasileiro SA and other state firms on contracts and using part of the proceeds to bribe members of Rousseff's ruling coalition. (Reporting by Guillermo Parra-Bernal, Reese Ewing and Pedro Fonseca; Editing by Greg Mahlich and W Simon)