Brazil's federal police said on Tuesday they served arrest warrants and conducted search and seizure operations to probe a suspected international vote-buying scheme which could have helped Rio de Janeiro's successful bid to host the 2016 Olympics.

The head of Brazil's Olympic committee, Carlos Arthur Nuzman, was one of the targets of the operation, TV Globo said, without citing sources.

Reuters' efforts to contact Nuzman were unsuccessful before business hours.

Last March, organizers of the 2016 Rio Olympics denied that vote-buying helped secure the Games.

They were responding to a French newspaper report that said a Brazilian businessman made a payment to the son of an International Olympic Committee member, three days before the 2009 IOC decision on the host city for the 2016 Games.

The IOC then said it had began investigating the allegations.

(Writing by Silvio Cascione; Editing by W Simon)

Source: AFP