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Brazilian police arrested Tuesday a former minister and ally of President Michel Temer in connection to alleged corruption in the construciton of a soccer stadium for the 2014 World Cup as well as over suspected ties to a fraud scheme at a state-run bank.
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Former Minister of Tourism Henrique Eduardo Alves, who stepped down from Temer's cabinet over bribery accusations last June, before the impeachment process that installed the government was even complete, was the target of one of five arrest warrants served. Six more people were brought in for questioning.
Alves, of Temer's right-wing PMDB party, was previously the speaker of the lower house of Congress form 2013 to 2015.
The fraud allegations also embroil jailed former speaker of the lower house of Congress, Eduardo Cunha, Alves' successor in the position and the mastermind behind the impeachment process that ousted former President Dilma Rousseff. Cunha was sentenced earlier this year to 15 years in jail on corruption charges. He has also been at the center of the latest scandal swirling around the president, after a wiretap recording appeared to reveal Temer had endorsed illicit payments to Cunha to keep him from testifying in corruption cases.
Alves and Cunha are both also targets in an investigation into a corruption scheme at Brazil's largest mortgage lender, Caixa Economica Federal.
The investigation into construction fraud in a 2014 World Cup stadium in Brazil's northeastern city of Natal, the Arena das Dunas stadium, is one of several stadiums to come under investigation.
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Last month, Brazilian police arrested a Temer advisor, Tadeu Filippelli, a former vice governor in Brasilia, as well as former federal district governors Jose Roberto Arruda and Agnelo Queiroz and seven others as part of an investigation into a suspected corruption scheme surrounding overcharges in the renovation of a soccer stadium in Brasilia.
The arrests come amid the fallout from a fresh corruption scandal rocking Temer's government that has prompted widespread calls for the unelected president's resignation or impeachment and early elections to choose a new president.
Temer faces investigations for corruption and obstruction of justice after an explosive wiretap recording caught the president endorsing bribes to ensure Cunha's silence as a powerful witness in government fraud cases. Police sent the president a list of 84 questions Monday, which he has 24 hours to answer.
Meanwhile, the country's top electoral court relaunched a trial Tuesday on alleged illegal election campaign finance that could unseat the president.
According to a new poll by the CUT workers' union, 90 percent of Brazilians prefer direct general elections to choose a new president democratically in the event that Temer steps down or is removed from office.
Temer has repeatedly stated that he will not resign.
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