Paulo Maluf, a prominent Brazilian politician, and four others were indicted on Thursday in New York on charges of stealing more than $11.6m from a Brazilian highway project. 字串1

A grand jury also charged Mr Maluf, his son and three others with participating in a kickback scheme while mayor of S㣯 Paulo that may have added as much as $400m to the $200m price tag for building a highway known as Avenida Agua Espraiada between 1993-1997.

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Mr Maluf, 75, alone may have received as much as $120m, though the US case focuses solely on the money that US authorities can trace through New York, said Robert Morgenthau, the Manhattan district attorney.

The kickbacks allegedly came in the form of cash and wire payments, including some to accounts controlled by Mr Maluf and his son Flavio at the Safra National Bank in Manhattan.

“We don’t want people using the American banking system for corrupt purposes,” Mr Morgenthau said. 字串9

An arrest warrant has been issued but Brazil does not extradite its citizens. Mr Maluf is now a fugitive from US justice and could be arrested if he leaves his home country, Mr Morgenthau said.

New York officials came upon the case while investigating the widespread use in Manhattan of credit cards from the Bahamas. Mr Maluf’s name came up in connection with money moving from New York to the Caribbean. 字串2

Mr Maluf has survived numerous accusations of corruption but has never been found guilty. He has dismissed accusations as politically motivated.

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A short statement issued on his behalf on Thursday said: “All the false accusations against Paulo Maluf have never been proved and are the result of political persecution”.

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Mr Maluf’s reputation for corruption has done his political career little harm over the past 35 years and may even have helped it. A phrase used by his supporters has entered Brazil’s political vocabulary: rouba mas faz – “he steals, but he gets things done”. He built his career on the kind of large-scale public works that lie behind his indictment – highly visible projects that provide large numbers of jobs and stand as impressive signs of progress to his natural constituents among the poor and less educated.

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He first rose to political prominence under Brazil’s military dictatorship in the late 1960s. His rightwing populist party, the PP, is a natural adversary of the leftwing PT of President Luiz In㡣io Lula da Silva and Mr Maluf ran an aggressive and unsuccessful campaign for mayor of S㣯 Paulo in 2000 against Marta Suplicy, a leading figure in the PT. Recently, however, he has sought an alliance with Ms Suplicy for the next mayoral elections in 2008.