Brazil’s Petrobras scandal is like Teapot Dome and Crédit Mobilier, plus Watergate on crack. “Operation Car Wash,” as the investigation is called, began by probing kickbacks at state-owned oil company Petrobras and has spread to 356 members of the Brazilian Congress. Approval of the country’s president has dipped below the inflation rate. Criminal prosecutors in the past year have convicted 93 people of corruption. Brazil’s richest construction tycoon got a sentence of 19 years in prison. And a cloud of civil liability hangs over every firm in the energy and construction sectors.
It took weeks for me to get a Brazilian corruption lawyer on the phone, and seconds later he had to jump off the line. “Sorry,” said Salim Saud Neto of Saud Advogados when he dialed back. “Every time one of my clients sees a police car in front of their building, they panic and call me.” It turned out to be a false alarm. But the client still needs Saud to guide him on the question of the moment: Should he turn his company in?
