Police made the accusations against Chief Executive André Gerdau Johannpeter and 18 other suspects in a report filed Friday in a federal court, a police spokesman said Monday. The full report hasn’t been released.
In addition to Mr. Johannpeter, police are seeking charges against other company executives, tax authority officials and lawyers on allegations of bribery, money laundering and influence peddling, according to a police statement. Only prosecutors can file charges in Brazil’s legal system.
In an emailed statement, Gerdau said Monday that it has yet to see the police report containing the accusations. But it “received with immense surprise and repudiation the news that company executives, among them its CEO, are among the accused.”
“None of them ever promised, offered or gave improper benefits to public functionaries so that cases open in CARF would be illegally judged in their favor,” the company said of its executives. The company added that it is at the full disposal of authorities to provide the requisite “clarifications” in the case.
The latest move by police came as part of an investigation known as Operation Zealots, which since March 2015 has pursued allegations that company executives bribed tax officials to win favorable judgments from a special tax court known as CARF.
Federal Police raided Gerdau offices in February as part of the probe. At the time, Mr. Johannpeter was questioned by police for about two hours.
Arnaldo Malheiros Filho, a lawyer for both the company and Mr. Johannpeter, 53, said at the time that neither party did anything illegal.
Founded by Mr. Johannpeter’s great-great-grandfather and great-grandfather in 1901, Gerdau evolved from a local nail factory in the southern Brazilian city of Porto Alegre to Latin America’s largest steelmaker. It is among Brazil’s most global companies, with operations from Spain to India and major presence in the U.S.
Brazilian police and prosecutors have been aggressively pursuing the country’s endemic corruption in recent years with a series of high-profile investigations. The most sprawling to date, known as Operation Car Wash, has produced prison sentences for national politicians and executives from some of Brazil’s biggest construction companies on charges such as bribery and money laundering.
Operation Zealots centers on allegations that certain companies avoided paying large fines by bribing members of CARF, an appeal council that adjudicates disputes between Brazil’s tax agency and the nation’s top taxpayers.
Investigators are scrutinizing CARF decisions since 2005 that led to reduced fines, prosecutors say.
Gerdau’s shares in São Paulo plunged 6.7% to 6.16 reais Monday as reports of the Federal Police action leaked out.
Write to Rogerio Jelmayer at rogerio.jelmayer@wsj.com and Paul Kiernan at paul.kiernan@wsj.com
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