A Corruption Case That Spilled Across Latin America Is Coming Undone

One of the largest corruption crackdowns in recent history is being quietly wiped away.Brazil’s Supreme Court is tossing out key evidence, setting aside major convictions and suspending billions of dollars in fines in a historic series of bribery cases, arguing that biased investigators, prosecutors and judges broke laws in their ravenous pursuit of justice.In rulings over the past year — most stemming from legal challenges from people who claim they were treated unfairly — the court has undone cases in which senior politicians and business executives had pleaded guilty.The decisions are now cascading across Latin America, leading to the dismissals of at least 115 convictions in Brazil, according to anticorruption groups.The reversals are also casting doubt over many other cases in Panama, Ecuador, Peru and Argentina, including the convictions of several former presidents.It all amounts to a broad unraveling of Operation Car Wash, a sweeping investigation that, starting a decade ago, uncovered a vast corruption scheme spanning at least 12 countries.

Investigators found that corporations had paid billions of dollars in bribes to government officials in exchange for public projects.The findings upended Latin America’s political landscape, shutting down multinational businesses and leading to billions of dollars in fines and hundreds of convictions.Some of the region’s most prominent politicians and executives were sent to prison, including President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil.Its undoing is now a dreary conclusion to an investigation that had once been viewed as a sea change in Latin America, promising to root out systemic corruption that had rotted the underpinnings of governments.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.

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