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Swiss Banks Also Feeling the Sting of Brazil’s Car Wash Investigation

By Jamil Chade

The opacity of Switzerland’s banking system served the corruption scheme well. Swiss authorities are looking at ways to change that.

GENEVA - By the time Swiss regulators began to investigate the role their banks played in Brazil’s wide-ranging Car Wash scheme in June 2015, the investigation was over a year old, had dragged down some of that country’s most powerful political and economic figures, and was about to ensnare its biggest catch: Marcelo Odebrecht, CEO of the eponymous Brazilian construction giant. 

The timing was not a coincidence. The construction company had, for over a decade, relied on offshore companies and on a network of bank accounts to dispense bribes. As soon as Marcelo Odebrecht was arrested...

Read this article on the Americas Quarterly website. | Subscribe to AQ.

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