Brazilian tycoon Eike Batista believed to have fled to New York

Brazilian business tycoon Eike Batista, whose arrest was ordered on Thursday for a series of financial crimes, was not located in his home in Rio and is believed to have fled Brazil to New York City of the United States.

Batista reportedly used a German passport to travel to the United States, taking advantage of his Brazilian-German dual nationality. According to local daily O Globo, the Federal Police fear Batista will try to escape to German through the U.S.

Batista's lawyers said he will surrender himself to Brazilian authorities, but he remains missing so far. According to O Globo, he is already being chased by Interpol.

Eike Batista is accused of paying million bribes to Rio authorities in exchange for favoring his companies in governmental contracts. He is believed to have paid 100 million U.S. dollars, which were reportedly laundered abroad, in fiscal havens.

Other eight people had their arrests ordered in the same Federal Police operation, including a former high executive of Batista's EBX Group, Flavio Godinho, and the former Rio de Janeiro state governor Sergio Cabral Filho. Godinho was arrested in the morning and Cabral is already in jail for other similar accusations.

Batista was Brazil's richest man and the eighth richest person in the world until 2013, when his main company OGX, an oil giant, declared bankruptcy. The incident caused a domino effect in the other companies of the OGX Group, making Batista lose most of his fortune.

source: Xinhua