QuickTake Q&A: Brazil’s Carwash Is More Trouble for Ruling Party

Two years on, a corruption investigation in Brazil is still producing fresh revelations. Overshadowed at times by the broader political perils of President Dilma Rousseff -- who is suspended from office and facing an impeachment trial in the Senate -- the probe known as Carwash has implicated state-run oil giant Petrobras, large construction companies and politicians, and is creating havoc for the nascent administration of the acting president, Michel Temer. Court documents indicate that investigators are also reviewing possible payoffs at two multi-billion dollar projects related to this summer’s Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.

Operation Carwash uncovered a kickback and corruption scandal involving Petrobras and the building companies that are among the nation’s biggest political donors. Prosecutors say construction companies formed cartels to win inflated contracts at Petrobras, giving kickbacks to executives and politicians. The name Carwash comes from the preferred money-laundering location -- a Brasilia gas station -- of Alberto Youssef, Brazil’s black-market central banker, who disclosed the kickback system to law enforcement while being interrogated after an arrest.