Banco Nacionalde Desenvolvimento Econômico e Social allegedly raised 17 billion Brazilianreais from a public investment in its infrastructure fund FI-FGTS in transactionsthat violated the fund's bylaws, O Globoreported.

The fund, which is linked to the country's employee indemnityguarantee fund FGTS, reportedly bowed to pressure from politicians and BNDES' executivesin transferring funds to strengthen the state-run bank's capital base, accordingto plea deal testimony from Fábio Cleto, a former Caixa Econômica Federal vice president for government fundsand lotteries.

There were two alleged transactions in question, according tothe July 16 report, with the first one being released in 2008 for 7 billion reaisthat was in relation to the 2007 development of the fund and an additional 10 billionreais that were grantedin 2015.

Caixa Econômica Federal is the managerof the fund, which closed in 2015 with 31.8 billion reais in assets.

Both Caixa and BNDES denied irregularities in the 7 billion reaisfinancial injection from 2007, claiming that it was made in accordance with thefund's bylaws. The banks denied that a 10 billion reais contribution was made in2015, according to the publication.

As of July 15, US$1 wasequivalent to 3.27 Brazilian reais.