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.

Jorge Pontes is a graduate from the FBI National Academy. He spent almost thirty years working for the Federal Police-first as an agent and later as a police chief-both nationwide and abroad, and devoted most of his career to the creation and implementation of units specializing in fighting environmental crime.

Marcio Anselmo joined the Federal Police as a clerk in 2004, stationed in Guaíra, and has since been actively involved in investigating financial crime, corruption and money laundering. He worked on the Banestado case in Brasília, and led the investigations on Operation Faktor. From 2018 to 2020, he occupied the post of coordinator-general of the corruption and money laundering unit.