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BRAZIL AWARDED 2016 ANTI-CORRUPTION AWARD

Transparency International awarded the 2016 Anti-Corruption Award to Brazil’s “Operation Car Wash,” a nationwide money laundering investigation. A jury selected “Operation Car Wash” from 580 nominations of journalists, activists, and government officials. Since April 2014, Operation Car Wash has racked up 1,256 years of jail time for high-level politicians and businessmen.

An Anti-Corruption Legacy

Operation Car Wash marks the first time in Brazilian history that white-collar criminals are facing jail time on a mass scale. The investigation has even targeted former President Lula, the most popular politician in Brazilian history.

Prosecutors launched a national campaign for legislative reform with its “Ten Measures Against Corruption.” However, a more lenient legislation approved by Brazil’s lower house essentially decriminalized money laundering. As a result, the entire Car Wash task force threatened to resign.

Operation Car Wash Critics

Despite national and international accolades, the Car Wash task force has its critics. Many have questioned the tactics of Federal Judge Sérgio Moro, at the head of the investigation. Defense teams accuse Moro of favoring the prosecution and overuse of precautionary arrests. Moro also released private phone conversations between Lula and then-President Dilma Rousseff to the national media, evidence usually kept within the courthouse.

Finally, some find it strange that Moro has not judged politicians from the centrist opposition party, the PSDB (Brazilian Social Democratic Party). At a conference in Washington, Moro emphasized that because the Worker’s Party held power since 2003, it would not make sense to prosecute its opposition. However, existing evidence also dates the corruption scandal back to former PSDB president Fernando Henrique Cardoso. PSDB party members may have received the largest bribe of the entire scandal.

Despite huge gains in its fight against corruption, Brazil’s “Car Wash” still has billions of dollars – and innumerable political and business elite – to go before it can call itself clean.