Since February 1, Lava Jato in Paraná has joined the Special Action Group to Combat Organized Crime (Gaeco) of the Federal Public Ministry (MPF). The Paraná task force ceases to exist, but some of its members start to work at Gaeco, with the objective of continuing the work.

By the end of January, in almost seven years of dedication to fighting corruption, the operation has accumulated significant numbers that have revealed to society the crimes of corruption that historically plague Brazil. There were 79 phases, 1,450 search and seizure warrants, 211 coercive conducts, 132 preventive and 163 temporary arrest warrants. During the phases, materials and evidence were collected that supported 130 complaints against 533 defendants, generating 278 convictions (174 unique names) reaching a total of 2,611 years of sentence. 38 public civil actions were also proposed, including administrative impropriety actions against three political parties (PSB, MDB and PP) and a signed conduct adjustment term.

In addition, there are 735 requests for international cooperation – 352 requests from other countries (active) and 383 liabilities (requests from other countries to the MPF). In 2015 there were 66 assets and eight liabilities, while in 2019 there were 67 assets and 133 liabilities. The evolution of these data demonstrates the seriousness and efficiency of the operation, which started to cooperate with investigations worldwide.

More than R $ 4.3 billion have already been returned through 209 collaboration agreements and 17 leniency agreements, in which the return of almost R $ 15 billion was adjusted. Of the recovered amount, R $ 3 billion was allocated to Petrobras, R $ 416.5 million to the federal coffers and R $ 59 million was transferred to the 11th Court of the Judiciary Section of Goiás – resulting from illicit activities that victimized the state company Valec. It has also already invested R $ 1.1 billion in favor of the company, as a result of agreements signed with concessionaires through Operation Integration, the development of Lava Jato in Paraná. Of this amount, R $ 570 million is to subsidize the reduction of tolls in Paraná and R $ 515 million for investments in works on the state’s highways.

“The legacy of the Task Force Lava Jato is undeniable and praiseworthy considering the advances we have made in discussing issues that are so important and dear to Brazilian society. However, there is still a lot of work that, if allowed, will make it possible for the fight against corruption to be effectively reversed in favor of society, either by punishing criminals, by returning misappropriated public money, or by sharing information that allows other bodies collaborate in uncovering the illicit schemes that have plagued our country for so long, ”says Alessandro José de Oliveira, coordinator of the Lava Jato unit in Gaeco.

The evidence obtained and shared with other bodies, such as the Federal Audit Court, the Attorney General’s Office, the Federal Revenue Service, among others, enabled the development of work on several other fronts, contributing to the discovery of other crimes or illegal actions. The Federal Revenue Service, for example, made tax assessments of more than R $ 22 billion.

Current composition  – In an ordinance signed on December 7, 2020, the Attorney General’s Office integrated, in the group of five members of Gaeco, four other attorneys in Paraná, former members of the task force, with mandates until August 2022. Thus , Gaeco now has nine members, five of whom will dedicate themselves to the cases that made up the collection of the Lava Jato Task Force, with four of these members being exempt from the activities of their original offices.

Alessandro José Fernandes de Oliveira
Daniel Holzmann Coimbra
Henrique Gentil Oliveira
Henrique Hahn Martins de Menezes
Laura Gonçalves Tessler
Lucas Bertinato Maron
Luciana de Miguel Cardoso Bogo
Raphael Otavio Bueno Santos
Roberson Henrique Pozzobon

Another ten members remain assigned to act in specific cases or on an occasional basis until October 1, 2021, without joining Gaeco and without exclusive dedication to the case, working from the original capacity.

Ramifications  – The winning collaborations, leniency agreements, the data collected and the evolution of the investigations allowed other crimes to be discovered, deploying Lava Jato in two more operations in Curitiba: Pilot and Integration.

Operation Pilot was launched in September 2018 based on the content of testimonials from employees linked to the Odebrecht group, which revealed a money laundering scheme and bribery payment aimed at favoring the consortium led by the construction company in the PR-323 concession bid. These payments would have been made operational by the company’s Structured Operations Sector in favor of the code name “Pilot”, identified as the former governor Carlos Alberto Richa, linked to the PSDB. This case already has a condemnatory sentence issued by the 13th Federal Court of Curitiba.

The Integration Operation was the result of two phases launched in 2018 to investigate the systematic payment of bribes by Paraná toll concessionaires since 1999. It has effectively recovered R $ 570 million that has been used to subsidize the reduction of tolls in Paraná administered by two concessionaires, R $ 220 million from Ecorodovias and R $ 350 million from Rodonorte. The agreements with these concessionaires, which exceeded R $ 1 billion, also provided for the payment of fines and the construction of road works

Over more than half a decade, the work developed by Lava Jato reinforced that corruption is also a crime that crosses borders. Some of the money laundering mechanisms, for example, are carried out through banks in other countries, and most of the millions of reais diverted from Petrobras ended up in foreign accounts of companies based in tax havens.

In addition, based on the investigations conducted by the Brazilian authorities and the agreements signed by the task force, several countries around the world have launched their own investigations that have led to the arrest of several authorities, including former presidents of the Republic, such as Peru .

That is why the exchange of information through international cooperation is considered one of the pillars that help to leverage the operation. More than 720 international cooperation acts have been carried out and received. All international cooperation actions for processing evidence are formalized in the legal flows and pass through the Secretariat for International Cooperation of the Attorney General’s Office (SCI / PGR) and the Department of Asset Recovery and International Cooperation of the Ministry of Justice (DRCI / MJ).

History  – The largest investigation of corruption and money laundering in Brazil began on March 17, 2014, when the operation investigated financial crimes committed by four criminal organizations led by money changers.

The first facts that gave rise to the Lava Jato investigations are related to the investigations of a money laundering scheme, involving former federal deputy José Mohamed Janene, two companies based in Londrina, in the north of Paraná, (CSA Project Financeira and Dunel Industry and Commerce), the money changer Carlos Habib Chater and individuals and companies related to him. As money laundering took place in Paraná, the investigation was anchored in the State’s Specialized Money Laundering Court. During the time, crimes related to criminal organization, evasion of foreign exchange, ideological falsehood, corruption of public officials, drug trafficking, embezzlement and money laundering were found.

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