Transparency International and its Brazilian chapter are now the subject of a criminal investigation in Brazil. As GAB readers know (here), the investigation is part of Supreme Court Justice Dias Toffoli’s crusade to reverse the convictions handed down in Lava Jato, the landmark Brazilian corruption case. The aim is to ensure defendants escape all punishment in Brazil and are protected from prosecution in the dozen other Latin American and African countries where they paid bribes.
Today’s Guest Post by a Brazilian insider reveals just how groundless the investigation of TI is and Justice Toffoli’s direct conflict of interest in letting one of the Lava Jato defendants off the hook. The author explains that it starts, as the respected Brazilian journal Crusoé explains in the headline to its February 16 issue, with “A HISTORY OF FAKE NEWS AGAINST TRANSPARENCY INTERNATIONAL: How the narrative was planted, leaked, refuted and reheated in the PGR [Federal Attorney General Office] to retaliate the anti-corruption NGO.”
Guest Post: In Lava Jato the Federal Police carried in 80 phases more than 1.000 search and seizure warrants, temporary arrest, preventive detention, and coercive conduct. Car Wash investigated crimes of active and passive corruption, fraudulent management, money laundering, criminal organization, obstruction of justice, fraudulent exchange operations and receipt of undue advantage
Federal judge Sergio Moro was considered competent to work on most cases by the Supreme Court
The Federal Prosecutor’s Office (FPO) signed 43 civil agreements (leniency) with many companies (ODEBRECHT, CAMARGO CORREA, J&F ANDRADE GUTIERREZ etc.) and with people involved in corruption schemes aiming to recover 25 billion reais (or US$ 5 billion). In the criminal area, also were signed 156 plea bargain agreements (colaboração premiada) to get proofs, specially against politicians.
In 2017, the FPO signed with J&F a leniency agreement for which the company would have to pay 10.5 billion reais (more than US$ 2 billion) to the federal coffers. J&F was accused of paying bribes to several Brazilian authorities. The State Prosecutor’s Office received information and signed many of civil and criminal settlement agreements with companies involved in the same criminal scheme.
Based on evidence obtained in Car Wash Operation, investigations were opened in several countries, such as Angola, Argentina, Colombia, El Salvador, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico, Mozambique, Panama, Peru and Venezuela.
In 2018, federal prosecutors signed an agreement with Transparency International (TI) whereby the entity would help in the governance of part of the value of the J&F agreement (R$ 2.3 billion or more or less US$ 460 million) reserved for investments in social projects. This agreement provided that TI would not receive or manage amounts from the agreement due to the conflict of interests. TI would assist in avoiding the misuse of money of the agreement. TI never received money and refused to manage the settlement money and only made a report “pro bono”, according to Bruno Brandão (TI director in Brazil) and federal prosecutors.
But, at the beginning of 2019, Walter Delgatti Neto (“The Red”) and his associates invaded the cell phones of Car Wash members who were using the TELEGRAM application and discovered conversations that showed the proximity between the Federal Prosecutors and Federal judge Sergio Moro. To investigate cell phone hacking and information leaks, the federal Police started the Operation Spoofing in July 2019.
On December 13, 2020, J&F deposited 270 million reais (US$ 58 million) into a judicial account as part of the payment of the agreement. On the same day, the former Attorney General of Brazil Augusto Aras asked the Federal Prosecutors to block the money because he believed that the amount would be destined for TI.
This information was not true because the money could not be allocated to TI. But the newspapers published Aras’ version about the suspicion. After the publication of the articles, TI was the victim of a series of fake news and lies.
In June 2023, after a vote of Justice DIAS TOFFOLI, the Supreme Court decided that the illicit evidence obtained by Delgatti Neto and his colleagues could not be destroyed by the judge responsible for Operation Spoofing. Delgatti was convicted and sentenced to 20 years prison.
On December 19, 2023, Justice TOFFOLI suspended the execution of J&F agreement due to: “reasonable doubt about the requirement of voluntariness of the applicant in signing the leniency agreement with the Federal Prosecutor’s Office that imposed patrimonial obligations on him, which justifies, for now, the suspension of payments. In the decision.” Operation Spoofing was mentioned 32 times.
On December 30, 2023, TI released a report on corruption in Brazil (104 position out of 180 countries) and mentioned judge TOFFOLI’s name nine times, because his wife, ROBERTA RANGEL, was and is a J&F lawyer. Furthermore, TOFFOLI was mentioned in e-mail got 2019 by Car Wash as being a “friend of my father’s friend” by Marcelo Odebrecht, a businessman who paid bribes to hundreds of public agents. Such a “friend of a friend” would be DIAS TOFFOLI.
On February 5, 2024, Toffoli orders an investigation into TI for the possible receipt or management of 270 million reais of J&F agreement.
This allegation had already been denied in 2020 by Federal Prosecutor Samantha Dobrowolski, who worked on the agreement with J&F
Some newspapers and internet sites published articles reporting possible irregularities and others reported that everything was fake news. The electronic magazine CRUSOE published the true story and wrote that the decision was TOFFOLI’s retaliation.
WHO IS DIAS TOFFOLI?
He failed twice in the public exam for judge of first instance of the State of Sao Paulo, in 1994 and 1995. Between 1995 and 2000 he was a lawyer for the Workers’ Party (Lula’s party). He served as a lawyer for three presidential campaigns by Luís Inácio Lula da Silva, in the 1998, 2002 and 2006 elections.
He was appointed in 2009 by Lula as a justice of the Supreme Court. The Senate approved the nomination, but some senators questioned his “remarkable legal knowledge.”
GAB | The Global Anticorruption Blog 
The fact of the matter is that there is a big effort to “sanitize” the justice in Brazil, especially those which involve the criminal investigators’ procedures and legal decisions taken by ex-Judge Moro in the context of the so-called “Lava-Jato” (LJ) operations. Misconducted behaviors by the LJ team have jeopardize their efforts and are under scrutiny. The Supreme Court has already decided that some of Moro`s decisions have been considered extremely biased, and influenced by political interests of his team, including those involving international organizations with LJ, such as the Transparency International.
The “sanitization” process seems to be being taken to the extremes. And as experience with a somewhat similar process in the U.S. shows, such an extreme is misguided. For years American judges dismissed cases against defendants no matter how overwhelming the evidence was if the police had made any procedural error — no matter how trivial. Courts realized how nonsensical this was (it had citizens up in arms) and found ways to pull back on the extremes.
If the problem is misconduct by prosecutors, the proper response to is to sanction the prosecutors. Not excuse blatant criminal conduct by defendants.
In any event, the sanitation process here seems tainted — to say the least — given that Justice Toffoli’s wife represents one of the defendants benefiting the most from the sanitation.
Justice has to follow the rule of law and to respect legal procedures. Judge Moro has been condemned by the Supreme Court. Some prosecutors have been expelled from their duties and from the political scene. They have been sanctioned. These outcomes do not mean that crimes have not been committed by certain politicians and companies’ executives in the LJ context.
Shocking to read about Justice Toffoli’s blatant conflict of interest – I’m generally familiar with Lava Jato but really appreciate the additional details here about how it is still rippling through the courts. What struck me as odd is that Brazilian media would uncritically report information about TI receiving the money when that is verifiably false, though I am not particularly familiar with how the Brazilian media has covered Lava Jato in recent years. I’m curious why you think that happened? And now that the narrative is infected with fake news, I wonder which narrative is most prevalent domestically in Brazil?