Operation Car Wash linchpin back in jail

Alberto Youssef in 2016. Photo: Paulo Lisboa/Folhapress

Federal Police on Monday arrested infamous money launderer Alberto Youssef for failing to repay funds cited in his plea agreement with prosecutors in the Operation Car Wash investigation.

Mr. Youssef is a black-market currency trader — a criminal occupation that features regularly in corruption scandals through the facilitation of money laundering via offshore bank accounts.

Mr. Youssef was one of Operation Car Wash’s first arrests and spent almost three years in prison. He was released in late 2016 after entering into a plea agreement that allowed him to be transferred to house arrest. As part of the deal, Mr. Youssef was ordered to hand over several assets, including real estate and luxury vehicles.

Judge Eduardo Appio, who presides over the criminal court once responsible for Operation Car Wash, wrote that there’s no indication that Mr. Youssef had regularly paid his debts to the Brazilian tax authorities, and that he had failed to notify the court of his address.

He called Mr. Youssef “a true architect of several criminal organizations over the last 20 years,” and added that he “can be considered a wealthy and successful criminal” — at one point even owning a helicopter.

Judge Appio wrote that Mr. Youssef poses “an enormous risk to society” and that he has a focus on “white-collar financial crimes.”

Mr. Youssef was arrested in Itapoá, a small coastal city in the southern state of Santa Catarina, and was sent to Curitiba, in Paraná state — the headquarters of the now-defunct Operation Car Wash.

Alberto Youssef inspired the creation of the character Roberto Ibrahim, the antagonist of the Netflix series The Mechanism (2018-2019), which ran for two seasons.