FourFour two: Tropica supermarket and Tropicalana supermarket in Brazil.
The two Brazilian supermarkets, owned by the same company, have been both the subject of legal action and allegations of corruption in the past.
The retailer, which opened in 2014 in the southern state of Mato Grosso do Sul, was taken over by a private consortium in 2013, and it has faced allegations of price fixing, price collusion and bribery in recent years.
The supermarket’s website has been blocked by hackers and its owner, Tropica, has faced accusations of mismanagement.
The company’s new owners, Brazilian company Tropica Nacional de Trabajadores SA, said in an email to FourFour that it had removed the site from its servers and that it would remove the article from the site after “full investigations”.
It did not respond to an email from ABC News seeking comment.
The supermarket chain, which has been a focus of the ongoing legal saga, has also been targeted by anti-corruption activists in recent months.
In February, Brazilian newspaper Folha de São Paulo published a report saying that Tropica had been involved in a plot to bribe local officials in Rio de Janeiro.
The story has since been removed.
A Brazilian prosecutor said at the time that the investigation had focused on a group of businessmen connected to the state-owned Brazilian Railways and the Brazilian Railway Workers Union (ABRVI) who had used a company linked to Tropica as a front.
Two months later, Brazilian police launched an investigation into allegations of illegal bribes allegedly paid to officials for contracts worth $2.7 billion awarded in 2013 and 2014.
In a report released last month, the Brazilian National Police Service (PNS) said it was probing allegations that at least 12 former officials had received bribes from the private consortium Tropica and a number of other businessmen and women.
PNS said the alleged bribes were paid by a company owned by a man named Roberto Fernandes.
It said he was accused of using a company that was also owned by another group of investors.
In addition to a total of seven people in Brazil who were investigated by the PNS, prosecutors say a number more people have been charged.
In August, Brazilian prosecutors said they had filed charges against two individuals linked to the scandal.
PNS said it had launched a probe into the alleged fraud in May, with the aim of bringing those who received illegal payments to justice.
“The actions of some individuals are linked to a network of businessmen, and are directly linked to those who have committed crimes, which have caused the current scandal,” the prosecutor’s office said in a statement.
“In this regard, the investigation into the fraud continues and the investigations are ongoing.”