[texas booster]

What began as an investigation into money laundering quickly turned into something much greater, uncovering a vast and intricate web of political and corporate racketeering...

The investigation that led to Cerveró’s arrest – codenamed Lava Jato (Car Wash) – was about to uncover an unprecedented web of corruption. At first, the press described it as the biggest corruption scandal in the history of Brazil; then, as other countries and foreign firms were dragged in, the world. The case would go on to discover illegal payments of more than $5bn to company executives and political parties, put billionaires in jail, drag a president into court and cause irreparable damage to the finances and reputations of some of the world’s biggest companies. It would also expose a culture of systemic graft in Brazilian politics, and provoke a backlash from the establishment fierce enough to bring down one government and leave another on the brink of collapse...

Long but pretty fair reading of the corruption scandal in Brazil.

Worth following the linky to finish reading.

[texas booster]

Launched in March 2014, the operation had initially focused on agents known as doleiros (black market money dealers), who used small businesses, such as petrol stations and car washes, to launder the profits of crime. But police soon realized they were on to something bigger when they discovered that the doleiros were working on behalf of an executive at Petrobras, Paulo Roberto Costa, the director of refining and supply. This link led prosecutors to uncover a vast and extraordinarily intricate web of corruption. Under questioning, Costa described how he, Cerveró and other Petrobras directors had been deliberately overpaying on contracts with various companies for office construction, drilling rigs, refineries and exploration vessels. The contractors they were paying had formed an agreement to ensure they were guaranteed business on excessively lucrative terms if they agreed to channel a share of between 1% and 5% of every deal into secret slush funds....

More on the way business is done in Latin America, and often the rest of the world. Unfortunately, often now how business is done in the US.

[GraceG]

Correct me if I am wrong but didn’t the Obama admin have some connection to petrobras?

[ryderann]

Soros was a big owner of Petrobras stock when Obama gave it 2 billion of our dollars.

[SaveFerris]

[had taught him how quickly the rich and powerful could wriggle off the hook]

Oh, sorry. I thought this story was about Hillary Clinton and The Clinton Foundation.

[TangoLimaSierra]

He wasn't kidding about the guy's eyes.

[VTenigma]

This may be a big corruption case, but if the Clinton crime syndicate is ever unraveled it will dwarf this corruption.

[fella]

Didn’t Obama give them a billion so they could drill off shore while at the same time shutting down our off shore drilling?

Some crooks are just to big to investigate much less prosecute.

[SunTzuWu]

Bookmark.

[bert]

The Obama administration is equally corrupt and the instrument for stealing the money is Green Energy projects and jobs.

Jail is not the answer. There must be some deaths as punishment and example

[Deplorable American1776]

Petrobras makes Petromex look like ExxonMobil.

[JoeFromSidney]

Over twenty years ago I was a visiting scholar at a Brazilian research institute. My colleagues there were proudly telling me that shortly before my arrival, Brazil had become the first democracy ever to go through the full process of impeaching a corrupt president.

Wish we'd done that to a couple of presidents I could name.