A Financial Times Book to Read in 2022
Operation Car Wash is the inside story of two Brazilian Federal Police officers who found themselves at the centre of the biggest corruption scandal in history; uncovering a web of political and corporate racketeering which would lead them all the way to the arrest and imprisonment of the nation's President.
Through engrossing first-hand testimony, Pontes and Anselmo recount the uphill battle faced by the Federal Police in apprehending Brazil's white-collar criminals, in a country where the war on drugs has become a convenient distraction for the politicians and businessmen extracting billions of dollars from the public purse.
A historical record that reads like a political police thriller, Operation Car Wash is also a warning to the world: demonstrating how easily institutionalized crime can take root in a nation, and how difficult it can be to eradicate.
Operation Car Wash is the inside story of two Brazilian Federal Police officers who found themselves at the centre of the biggest corruption scandal in history; uncovering a web of political and corporate racketeering which would lead them all the way to the arrest and imprisonment of the nation's President.
Through engrossing first-hand testimony, Pontes and Anselmo recount the uphill battle faced by the Federal Police in apprehending Brazil's white-collar criminals, in a country where the war on drugs has become a convenient distraction for the politicians and businessmen extracting billions of dollars from the public purse.
A historical record that reads like a political police thriller, Operation Car Wash is also a warning to the world: demonstrating how easily institutionalized crime can take root in a nation, and how difficult it can be to eradicate.
Two law-enforcement officials reflect on a Brazilian corruption scandal… Their thesis is that Brazil suffers from "institutionalised crime", by which they mean "a fraudulent system that operates with the blessing on the nation's power structures and the support of a network that pervades all three powers of the state… But their pleas for the independence of the Federal Police, and for more resources for the force, are well made. They are particularly scathing about the distorted priorities imposed by the war on drugs: tens of thousands of poor Brazilians have been locked up while the crimes of the rich and powerful have often gone unpunished.