Brazilian bishop ‘stole $600,000 from church collection plates’
Corruption is Everywhere - Catholic church, Brazil
A bishop and several priests in Brazil have been charged in connection with the theft of more than $600,000 belonging to parishioners.
Police arrested
Bishop of Formosa José Ronaldo Ribeiro as well as a number of other clergymen Monday after police found large quantities of cash during a raid on Ribeiro’s home. They group are accused of pilfering funds, amounting to 2 million reais ($608,000), from various sources.
Ribeiro and four other priests allegedly stole money from collection plates, donations and fees paid for weddings and baptisms. The supposedly ill-gotten gains were then used by the group to buy a cattle ranch and a lottery ticket shop, according to Brazilian media Globo TV.
Ribeiro scored something of an own goal when parishioners became suspicious and reported him to authorities, who then opened an investigation in 2015. Prosecutors charged a total of 11 people with misappropriation of funds, money laundering, ideological falsehood and criminal association on Friday.
WikiLeaks lawyer talks corruption & more with
ex-Ecuadorian President
Corruption is Everywhere - South American politics
Ex-Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa sits down with prominent Spanish judge and WikiLeaks lawyer Baltasar Garzon. The two of them talk transnational, corporate “neocolonialism” and the fight against corruption.
Ecuador's former President Rafael Correa © Daniel Tapia ‘Telling the vain from the profound’: Ex-Ecuadorian president’s show to premiere on RT
Following in the footsteps of former First Minister of Scotland Alex Salmond, the outspoken Rafael Correa is set to become the latest top-tier politician to host a program on RT. His weekly show, ‘Conversations with Correa’ (Conversando con Correa) mainly revolves around the major social and political problems gripping the world.
This time corruption, multinational corporations and smear campaigns against Latin America’s progressive leaders top the agenda of Correa’s show. His guest is Baltasar Garzon, a renowned Spanish lawyer and head of Julian Assange’s legal team.
“Turning the fight against corruption into an ideology issue is a very dangerous phenomenon,” the lawyer opines, citing the example of Brazil’s President Inacio Lula da Silva who was sacked from the post following a long corruption row.
“I think this is a gross injustice,” Garzon says, adding that Lula’s successor, President Dilma Rousseff, was also accused of being corrupt. Rousseff “as an honest person, should not have been removed from office through impeachment,” the WikiLeaks lawyer states. “This, from any point of view, is a shame.”
Recalling his experience as head of state, Correa remarks: “I can say there is a lot of ideological talk when it comes to combatting corruption.” According to Correa, who led the Ecuadorian government for over a decade, there is a myth that “corruption exists in state institutions only.”
"Normally, the state is neither better nor worse than the society it represents,” he posits. “People often think that the fight against corruption is the responsibility of the President, the head of state, but in fact it is the duty of the entire people.”
Correa stresses that fighting corruption has often been used in Latin America to target political opponents, and Garzon agrees. “Justice has become extremely prejudiced and biased against all those people who, in one form or another, were supporters of the previous government,” the lawyer says, recalling former Argentinian President Cristina Kirchner whose tenure was marred by several corruption scandals.
“It came even to the point that when a corrupt official is exposed, he is not condemned for the very fact of being corrupt, but for being caught in such a stupid way,” Garzon adds.
Almost a direct quote from something I wrote last year!
It was Correa who, in 2012, granted asylum to WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange, despite harsh criticism from the UK. Assange is still exiled in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London.
Cleaning Up: The Brazilian Judiciary Roots Out Corruption
By Vanessa Ruales | Harvard Political Review
In 2002, there was an air of excitement in Brazil as the Workers’ Party (PT) came into power. The new party, led by its exceptionally charismatic leader, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, promised unparalleled change to the political establishment, among them reforms aimed at stamping out the country’s age-old problem of corruption. Now, the Workers’ Party—and Lula himself—is ironically decimated by its own graft: the Odebrecht scandal.
Odebrecht, Latin America’s largest construction firm, was one of various companies that paid millions of dollars in bribes to Brazilian officials in exchange for contracts with Petrobras, Brazil’s state-controlled oil firm. The investigation in response to the scandal, Operation Lava Jato, uncovered the
systemic graft of the country’s most powerful executives and politicians.
The investigation marks a momentous change in Latin America: governments have finally been forced to answer to corruption allegations at the highest levels of government and business, breaking a long tradition of the public’s tacit acceptance of corruption as simply the way the government works.
What led to this avalanche of governmental accountability in Brazil? What accounts for the sudden successful prosecution of so many figures in government and business? The answer lies within the unexpected but powerful force of the judicial reforms the PT made during its 13-year rule. These anti-corruption reforms have not only made corrupt leaders suffer the consequence of their actions, but have also begun the process of creating a culture among the populace of an intolerance towards corruption.
Imagine that! What a concept!
Brazil’s Jeitinho Culture
Brazilians have long been accustomed to a government riddled by corruption. In fact, Brazil’s judiciary has been plagued by a tacit cultural acceptance of corruption as a necessary evil. This belief is so deeply entrenched in Brazilian society that there is even a term for it: the jeitinho brasileiro, or the Brazilian way. The justification for this acceptance? A common expression among Brazilians regarding their public officials explains it simply—Rouba mas faz—The Brazilian politician steals, but gets things done. Consequently, instead of serving as a check on the power of Congress and the Executive, the judiciary was nothing more than a tool for Brazilian politicians.
Lula da Silva during his first presidential term, December 2002.
Prior to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s administration, the legal process was known for its misconduct and lack of political independence. The government deliberately overwhelmed courts with time-consuming, inconsequential cases. Because the 1988 Constitution granted citizens a seemingly endless right to appeal decisions, small cases languished in the system for years. The government often took advantage of this fact to avoid paying its debts. Similarly, instances of corruption by judges were also common; some judges were known to have sold more lenient sentences to convicted criminals. Therefore, Lava Jato took the world by surprise when the investigation exposed a legal system tremendously effective at rooting out corruption.
The Story of Lava Jato
While the Lava Jato investigation originally began as a simple money laundering operation, the investigation soon uncovered evidence of corruption in the Brazilian government. In February 2014, investigators were led to Posto da Torre, a popular gas station in the heart of Brasilia during an operation inspecting doleiros, or money launderers. There, the police unexpectedly found a currency exchange and money wiring machine in the gas station that allowed executives from Petrobras, Brazil’s state oil company, to steal company money and move it to overseas accounts. These doleiros worked for Paulo Roberto Costa, a Petrobras executive who became the principal link to exposing dishonest public officials. He revealed to investigators that he and other Petrobras executives had routinely overpaid and provided extremely profitable terms to companies they hired for various contracts, such as the building of oil refineries. These companies would, in return, pay one to five percent of each deal back to Petrobras executives, amounting to about $3 billion in bribes.
Ultimately, the Lava Jato investigation not only implicated minor local officials, but even prominent figures in the national government. When whistleblower Delcídio do Amaral, leader of the Workers’ Party in the Senate, was jailed on corruption charges, do Amaral immediately turned on other politicians, providing to the police a testimony that implicated 74 minor officials. Within his testimony, do Amaral provided evidence that implicated corrupt politicians from all parties, flagrantly demonstrating to the Brazilian public and the world the extent of graft in the government. Most surprisingly of all, he contributed the accusations that placed scrutiny upon former President Lula da Silva and his hand-picked successor, then-President Dilma Rousseff.
The National Congress of Brazil
This corruption investigation entangled not only Brazil’s leading domestic politicians, but also powerful officials abroad with the discovery of Odebrecht’s involvement. Probes into these cases revealed that, in the same way, the company paid bribes to officials all over Latin America to secure lucrative construction contracts. Consequently, the Odebrecht scandal rocked the world with a staggering $800 million in payoffs, and $7 billion in settlements.
Reforms Under Lula Begin Fight Against Jeitinho
Although Lula ran on a campaign of anti-corruption, numerous instances of graft in his administration prompted widespread protests; in response, Lula enacted a set of anti-corruption measures that later proved to be crucial in the Lava Jato investigation. The most important of these changes was to provide more power and more resources to federal police and prosecutors, according to Jonathan Watts, Latin American correspondent from The Guardian. In a recent interview, Watts told the HPR that “The key step was in allowing public prosecutors to vote for the attorney general.” Consequently, the ability for prosecutors to choose their own attorney general led to the appointment of Rodrigo Janot, who was ruthless in his prosecution of corruption. Not only did Janot keep the Lava Jato investigation running despite major backlash from politicians left and right, but he also maintained the rule of law when he charged Lula and Rousseff with corruption, even though Rousseff had appointed him four years prior.
In addition to this change in electing the attorney general, Lula also enacted a set of laws fighting anti-corruption that profoundly improved courts’ efficiency, enabling them to process more corruption cases. Among these statutes were Law 11417, which allowed the Supreme Court to judge cases based on stare decisis, the legal principle which allows previous decisions made in similar cases to stand. This in turn allowed for the reduction of the Supreme Court’s massive caseload. The Court’s more than 11,000 judges were thus able to focus more resources on trying anti-corruption cases. Thee changes symbolized a crucial step in strengthening the judiciary and eventually weakening jeitinho culture.
Lawmakers Unintentionally Root Out Corruption
When Brazilians saw that the Workers’ Party government had enacted legislation in response to their original demands, the public took to the streets again in 2013. More than a million protested the government’s corruption as well as excess spending and an increasing scarcity of government services, which was caused by a deep economic downturn and made worse by preparations for the impending World Cup and Olympics.
After witnessing the satiating effect of anti-corruption legislation in Lula’s administration and whilst feeling the pressures of economic malaise, Rousseff enacted four anti-corruption laws: the 2011 procurement reforms, 2011 freedom of information law, 2013 Clean Company Act, and, most importantly, the 2013 organized crime bill. Andrew Spalding, professor of law at the University of Richmond (UR) School of Law and head of U.R.’s Olympic Anti-Corruption Research Team, discussed Lula’s legal reforms with the HPR. “The organized crime bill is by far the most important of the four major legal reforms in blowing open the Odebrecht bribery scandal. This is underappreciated, even among Brazilian lawyers.”
What lawyers and lawmakers did not appreciate, Spalding explained, was the two principal provisions of the bill: obstruction of justice charges and extended leniency agreements. The former referred to the stipulation that those who were charged with obstruction of justice were subject to the same punishment as if they had been accomplice to the crime or had committed the crime themselves. The latter referred to the greater ability of judges to grant plea bargains, or a reduction in a criminal’s sentence in exchange for providing information to the police that could aid them in arresting a more heinous criminal. Prior to the bill, judges could only reduce a sentence by two-thirds, but now had the authority of going as far as dropping charges.
Without the combination of these laws, the organized crime bill, and the reforms made under the Lula administration, Lava Jato could not have occurred. Freed up from trivial cases and an independent Attorney General, judges like Judge Sergio Moro took harsh stands on corruption, refusing bail from the arrested elite. This measure was enough to convince Nestor Cerveró, the Petrobras executive, to talk to the police about a plea deal and to provide the further evidence necessary to untangle the web of corruption.
By spring of 2017, plea bargains implemented by the organized crime bill implicated 77 involved individuals. Furthermore, the obstruction of justice charge allowed for an added pressure on defendants, as they not only faced their own charges of obstruction of justice, bribery, and other crimes, but also implicated their families in the process.
Brazilian federal judge Sergio Moro
Consequently, what started as a routine money laundering investigation led to billions of dollars in settlements for companies involved, brought executives like Marcelo Odebrecht to justice, investigated graft in more than 100 powerful politicians, and scrutinized even the makers of the reforms, Lula and Rousseff. The sentencing and impeachment of these two figures, although controversial, signals that Brazil’s judiciary has made great strides in effectively fighting corruption.
The Future of Corruption in Brazil
Although these reforms appear to have reduced corruption in Brazil, the current presidency of Michel Temer, an outspoken advocate of dismantling Lava Jato and the leader of Brazil’s most corrupt party, the PMDB, has led to concerns about the efficacy of these reforms. Temer has been charged with racketeering and obstruction of justice, funneling federal money to key officials that could help him avoid a conviction.
However, Brazil’s judiciary may still prove to be resilient in the face of such challenges. Latin America expert and professor of government at Harvard University, Steven Levitsky, explained, “for a long time, Brazil’s judiciary has grown more independent, more sophisticated for decades.” Given this fact, and Brazil’s increasing economic development (thus creating a society more demanding of democracy), it is likely that this slow change will continue regardless of Temer’s presidency.
The idea of the resilient strength of Brazil’s judiciary is especially pertinent considering the upcoming presidential elections. As of January 2018, recently convicted ex-president Lula da Silva is the lead candidate at 35 percent, according to Reuters, while the Trump-like right-wing dark horse candidate Jair Bolsonaro is in second place. In a country where the two leading presidential candidates have either been convicted of corruption or criticized for charges of racism and sexism, Brazil’s political future appears to be bleak.
However, Levitsky’s analysis of the Brazilian people’s predicament provides hope: the judiciary system has strengthened for so long that it has changed Brazilians’ expectations of their leaders. Their probable choice of Lula as their next president is not a reflection of the continued approval of the jeitinho, but a reflection of the fact that the system is so corrupt that it is difficult to find a clean and capable candidate. Consequently, it will take time for the system to change along with this judicial and cultural shift. While Bolsonaro’s candidacy is worrisome and likely indicates growing political and economic discontent, the results of Lava Jato are clear. The people have changed their expectations and will continue to demand a clean government, thus slowly continuing to strengthen Brazil’s jewel: its judiciary.
Peru takes ex-president’s passport amid corruption probe
In this photo provided by Peru’s presidential press office, Peru’s President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski waves to government workers and supporters outside the House of Pizarro government palace and presidential residence one day after offering his resignation in Lima, Peru, Thursday, March 22, 2018. Kuczynski announced his decision to resign in a nationally televised address, accusing opponents of plotting his overthrow for months and making it impossible to govern. Lawmakers are slated to debate whether or not to accept his resignation on Thursday. (Peruvian presidential press office via AP) (Associated Press)
By Associated Press
LIMA, Peru — A Peruvian judge on Saturday barred recently resigned President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski from leaving the South American nation for 18 months while he’s investigated for money laundering.
The ruling came a day after congress accepted Kuczynski’s resignation and swore in Vice President Martin Vizcarra as his successor.
Kuczynski, 79, is being probed for some $782,000 in payments his consulting firm received a decade ago from Odebrecht, the Brazilian construction giant at the heart of Latin America’s biggest-ever bribery scandal. Some of the payments took place when Kuczynski was a government minister, raising questions about whether they were made in return for political favors.
The former Wall Street investor has denied any wrongdoing. He said the consulting firm, Westfield Capital, was then being managed by his business partner and that he paid taxes on all earnings from that era.
Odebrecht has admitted to paying $800 million in bribes to officials across Latin America including $29 million in Peru.
At the same time the hearing was taking place, prosecutors carried out a search of Kuczynski’s home in Lima and another property outside the capital.
“Peru since the 19th century has watched the sad show as presidents and ex-presidents flee the country and justice,” said Hamilton Castro, the anti-corruption prosecutor who had requested Kuczynski be barred from leaving Peru. “This is the historical behavior that we seekers of justice have to take into account.”
Kuczynski’s lawyer promised his client’s full cooperation and said he would abide by the prosecutor’s request not to leave the country. Kuczynski was not present at Saturday’s hearing.
Kuzynski is the fourth former Peruvian president to be investigated for taking payments from Odebrecht. One is currently in jail while another, Alejandro Toledo, for whom Kuczynski served as finance minister, has refused to return to Peru from the U.S. to face charges.
