The acrimonious end of Operation Car Wash

In an April 2020 article, The Brazilian Report called former Federal Judge Sergio Moro “the most influential figure in Brazilian politics in the 2010s.” He was the conductor of Operation Car Wash, the biggest anti-corruption effort not only in Brazil’s history, but perhaps in the world. It was, without a doubt, the most significant political event in the country since its return to democracy in 1985. 

It began on March 17, 2014, when federal marshals cracked down on a money-laundering scheme operating out of a Brasília gas station, just three kilometers from the Congress building. Since then, every major political shift in the country has been a direct or indirect consequence of Operation Car Wash.

After seven years, 278 guilty verdicts, and the arrests of a former president and a former House Speaker under its belt, the anti-corruption task force is now over. And it went out not with a bang, but with a whimper, under a cloud after allegations of misdeeds, partisanship, and profiteering.

That this end comes under a president who was elected on an anti-corruption platform only adds insult to injury.

From zero to hero … back to zero

Everything about Operation Car Wash is superlative. The schemes under investigation took place in Brazil’s largest company, the state-owned oil and gas firm Petrobras. The amount of data compiled through Car Wash’s 79 stages forced the Federal Police to create a new system to store all the data. At one point, suspicious transactions identified by the operation amounted to BRL 8 trillion (USD 1.5 trillion) and involved every single mainstream political party in Brazil. This outstripped the country’s entire...