Why Operation Car Wash wants to arrest Paraguay’s ex-president

Since the inception of Operation Car Wash in 2014, it was a matter of time before Brazil’s sweeping corruption investigation into wrongdoings within construction firms, state-owned companies, government, and a variety of facets of Brazilian society would spread to neighboring countries.

Governments in Peru, Venezuela, Chile, and Bolivia have been mentioned or directly implicated in Car Wash testimony, but now the probe has reached Paraguay, ordering the arrest of the country’s most prominent powerbroker: former President Horacio Cartes.

On Tuesday morning, judges of the Operation Car Wash cases in Rio de Janeiro issued an arrest warrant for Mr. Cartes and another 16 individuals, among them Brazilians and Paraguayans. He also now has an Interpol red notice against his name.

The investigation into Mr. Cartes began in July of last year, while he was still President of Paraguay, leaving office one month later.

Tuesday’s arrest warrant is a part of Operation Patron, an offshoot of Car Wash pursuing notorious dollar smuggler Dario Messer and those linked to him.

The smugglers’ smuggler

Dario Messer, born in Brazil and naturalized Paraguayan, has been called the “dollar smugglers’ dollar smuggler,” intermediating countless illegal foreign exchange operations across the continent. Operating as something of a “bank” for illegal dollar exchangers, Mr. Messer provided guarantees for smaller smugglers, meaning he had a hand in...