After Seven Years, Brazil Shuts Down Car Wash anti-Corruption Task Force

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Brazil’s Car Wash (“Lava Jato”) anti-corruption unit has officially shut down, the end of an era for a team of prosecutors that helped send dozens of Latin American political and business leaders to jail, including several former presidents.

The task force, whose monicker stemmed from a routine money-laundering investigation into a car wash facility in Brasilia, ceased to exist on Monday, February 1st, although its dissolution was not announced until Wednesday by the federal prosecutors’ office (MPF).

Some of its prosecutors will be transferred to the organized crime unit of the MPF, where they will continue their work, the agency’s statement said.

The Car Wash squad began its work in 2014, focusing on contracting graft at state-run oil company Petrobras, although its scope quickly expanded. Former presidents and major companies throughout Latin America, thought for years to be untouchable, were implicated in sprawling corruption schemes uncovered by the investigators.

Among prominent figures sent to jail because of the investigation were former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. Outside of Brazil, ex-presidents in Peru, El Salvador and Panama were also jailed as a result of investigations started by the task force. Major international companies, such as Odebrecht, Maersk and Glencore, have also come under the investigators’ microscope.

Many leftists had grown wary of the task force, in part because of the conviction of Lula, while a series of leaked conversations (called “Vaza Jato”) in 2019 raised questions about whether investigators were cutting corners to secure prosecutions.

Corruption probes into family members of right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro have also made some conservatives suspicious of efforts to fight corruption as well.

That situation had left the future of Car Wash in doubt, even as its work remained popular among Brazilians. In September, Brazilian Prosecutor-General Augusto Aras extended the task force’s mandate until January 31st, but did not say if he would renew it.

According to its own data, the Car Wash task force was responsible for 295 arrests, 278 convictions and R$4.3 billion (US$803 million) in fines and recovered assets.