A Financial Times Book to Read in 2022 Operation Car Wash is the inside story of two Brazilian Federal Police officers who found themselves at the centre of the biggest corruption scandal in history; uncovering a web of political and corporate racketeering which would lead them all the way to the arrest and imprisonment of the nation's President. Through engrossing first-hand testimony, Pontes and Anselmo recount the uphill battle faced by the Federal Police in apprehending Brazil's white-collar criminals, in a country where the war on drugs has become a convenient distraction for the politicians and businessmen extracting billions of dollars from the public purse. A historical record that reads like a political police thriller, Operation Car Wash is also a warning to the world: demonstrating how easily institutionalized crime can take root in a nation, and how difficult it can be to eradicate.
Márcio Anselmo and Jorge Pontes provide an intriguing account of Operation Car Wash and its backdrop - a criminalized state and the endemic corruption present in governmental procedure in Brazil. Based on their personal accounts as Federal Police officers, they take us on a journey that paints a picture of how institutionalized crime has become an embedded feature of political and economic life in Brazil. The book also provides an insight into the investigative methods that police use, the challenges they face in holding those to account in a system that has protected itself for decades, and the often comical situations that confront the police when dealing with those who think their elite status and entitlement make them immune to the rule of law. Although their focus is on the situation in Brazil, the book is of interest and value to those in the many countries where the infestation of corruption in institutions similarly fuels criminal activity.








