Brasilia, December 15 (teleSUR-RHC) -- Brazilian police raided on Tuesday the home of the speaker of the lower house of Congress, Eduardo Cunha, who is accused of taking close to $5 million in bribes to secure contracts with the state-run oil company Petrobras.

Police surrounded Cunha's home in Brasilia, while they also raided a property of his in Rio de Janeiro in search for evidence linked to the corruption scandal that has rocked the country's political sector. 

Charges for corruption and money laundering were filed against Cunha in August.  The current raids are part of a larger anti-corruption operations including 53 probes across various states, according to local media.

The raids come as a congressional committee debates whether to dismiss Cunha from Congress due to the accusations he is facing.

Cunha is accused of receiving $5 million in kickbacks between 2006 and 2012 as part of the Petrobras scandal corruption ring. He is accused of hiding the earnings in Swiss bank accounts. The government of Switzerland confirmed in October that it had frozen Cunha’s bank accounts and assets over suspected money laundering. A Brazilian federal court also seized 2.4 million Swiss francs from an account belonging to Cunha.

Cunha kicked off a process of attempting to impeach President Dilma Rousseff on December 2nd.  Cunha is a member of the PMDB party and self-described adversary of Rousseff despite his party being in alliance with the ruling PT party. He left the PMDB-PT coalition in July. Vice President Michel Temer has maintained his alliance with Rousseff, though has increasingly given signals of an impending break with Rousseff, which could determine the outcome of the impeachment proceedings.

Cunha's decision to begin the proceedings has been interpreted as a retaliatory move after three lawmakers from Rousseff's PT party stated that they would vote to remove Cunha from his position over corruption allegations.
    
The Petrobras scandal has implicated roughly 50 politicians, among them the former treasurer of the Workers’ Party João Vaccari, who was sentenced to 15 years in prison for accepting bribes from the petroleum company.

The congressional hearing regarding charges against Cunha and his position in public office is set to continue on Tuesday.