Most of Brazil’s corruption focus over the past couple of years has been around Petrobras and the fallout from Operation Java Lito (Car Wash), which originally began as an investigation into the Brazilian state-owned energy company, but has spread to other companies and other sectors. However, there is now a second corruption scandal in Brazil that could be equally massive. It has been dubbed ”Operation Zelotes” and relates to tax evasion by not only Brazilian companies, but also multinationals doing business in Brazil.
According to an article in the Financial Times, the judicial investigation began with an anonymous tip that “accused councillors of the Administrative Council of Fiscal Resources (Carf)—a body within the finance ministry that rules on appeals over back taxes—of accepting bribes via third parties in exchange for ruling in companies’ favour.” This ‘favor’ would be reduction or complete amelioration of a company’s tax bill through the full waiving of tax payments owed the national government. Brazilian prosecutors have estimated that the tax cheating was on the scale of “at least R$19bn ($5.5bn).”
