Brazilian police arrested former Finance Minister Guido Mantega on Thursday as part of a sweeping corruption investigation into political kickbacks on contracts at state-run oil company Petroleo Brasiliero, according to a source close to the former minister.

In a statement, prosecutors said they were investigating a former minister who was chairman in 2012 of Petrobras, as the company is known, a description fitting Mantega. They did not name the minister.

Mantega served as finance minister for almost nine years under former presidents Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Dilma Rousseff, steering Latin America's largest economy through boom and bust at the height of the leftist Workers Party's rule.

Attorneys for Mantega did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Read more at Reuters.