Operation Car Wash redux?

In Brazilian politics, a familiar anxiety hangs in the air. As investigators delve deeper into the ties linking criminal organizations to major financial players and political power brokers, there is concern that the script of Operation Car Wash may be repeating itself, a time when police raids routinely ensnared politicians and business tycoons. 

This time, the stage is Rio de Janeiro’s state legislature, known as Alerj, and the target is the assembly’s speaker, Rodrigo Bacellar. He was arrested on Wednesday by Operation Flesh and Nail (a Brazilian expression best translated as “Thick as Thieves”) for allegedly leaking confidential information from a sealed investigation and obstructing the work of investigators looking into the Comando Vermelho (Red Command, or CV), arguably Rio’s most powerful criminal organization.

Federal Police said Bacellar learned in advance that marshals would target fellow state lawmaker Thiego Raimundo dos Santos Silva, better known as TH Joias, and warned him to remove items of interest from his home. TH Joias was detained in September for allegedly using his office to favor criminal organizations by “intermediating the purchase and sale of drugs, assault rifles and anti-drone equipment.”