AKIPRESS.COM - Brazilian prosecutors have filed corruption charges against billionaire Joseph Safra, said by Fortune magazine to be the world’s richest banker, and five others for involvement in an alleged scheme to pay off government tax auditors, according to FT.

The financier, who owns London’s Norman Foster-designed “Gherkin” skyscraper, is alleged to have known of a plan by executives at his banking group in Brazil to pay R$15.3 mln in bribes to help reduce tax debts today amounting to R$1.8 bln.

“The criminal intentions of the group is made clear by the various conversations and exchanges of messages cited in the indictment,” the prosecutors said in a statement signed in Brasília.

The Safra Group said in a statement that the allegations “were unfounded”.

Although deeply publicity-shy, Safra’s family has made several high-profile acquisitions in recent years, from the £726-mln purchase of the Gherkin to the $1.3-bln joint takeover of Chiquita, the banana company, with Brazilian orange juice group Cutrale.

Fortune estimates the 77-year-old Safra’s wealth at $18.6 bln, making him Brazil’s second-richest man after Jorge Paulo Lemann, the beer and food billionaire and partner of U.S. investor Warren Buffett in deals such as the takeovers of Heinz and Kraft.

“There have not been any improprieties by any of the businesses of The Safra Group,” the company said in a statement. “No representative of the group offered any inducement to any public official and the group did not receive any benefit in the judgment of the tribunal.”

The investigation into Safra is part of a probe into a tax audit scandal that could unveil even wider corruption than a parallel investigation, the so-called Car Wash probe into Petrobras, the state-owned oil company, analysts say.