Exposed: Transparency International's Secret Plan for Political Power in Brazil

Brazilian Supreme Court Minister Justice Gilmar Mendes exposes how TI operated in a legal gray area during a political power grab in consort with the now-disgraced Lava Jato task force

On March 6, 2019 the Lava Jato taskforce announced that the US DOJ was transferring 80% of the fines it levied against Petrobras to the Brazilian Public Prosecutors Office (Ministerio Publico Federal/MPF) to set up a privately managed “anti-corruption investment fund” that would bypass all of the public institutions and laws that were set up to protect against corruption, including the Federal Auditing Courts (TCU), the Federal Transparency Portal, and federal budget and budgetary planning laws. This transfer, which essentially constituted a kickback to the Lava Jato task force for its help in sabotaging Brazil’s national development strategy, attacking the PT party and jailing Lula, was valued at $682,560,000.

One week later, the Supreme Court blocked the initiative, ordering that the money returned to Brazil from the fines be rerouted into the public education system. At this point, journalists and investigators began to scrutinize the role that Transparency International had played in the process. This culminated in 2022, when Brazil’s Federal Auditing Court and MPF opened an investigation against Transparency International Brazil, for it’s role supporting the now disgraced Lava Jato task force in an attempt to illegally reroute public funds into a private foundation. In May, 2024, the Supreme Court opened a second investigation against Transparency International for an alleged attempt to take over the management of funds acquired in fines during the Lava Jato investigation. In October, 2024, the Attorney General’s Office threw out the case for lack of material evidence.

In August, 2024, veteran investigative journalist Luis Nassif revealed evidence showing that Transparency International had attempted to establish a similar private, “anti-corruption fund” with fines and settlements collected by the MPF in another anti-corruption investigation called, “Operation Greenfield”. TI published a response to Nassif’s article which can be read here.

On October 15, 2025, during a speech explaining his vote on a Supreme Court’s ruling over a case involving establishing the destination of fines collected by Federal Labor Court, entitled, Allegation of Breach of Fundamental Precept (ADPF) 944, Supreme Court Minister Gilmar Mendes spent 20 minutes criticizing Transparency International. Now a matter of court record, Minister Mendes introduced new information and analysis that is important for anyone studying what Gaspard Estrada called, “the biggest judicial scandal in Brazilian history”. In his conclusion on the topic, Minister Mendes alleges that real goal behind the attempt to outsource hundreds of millions of dollars in public money into the stewardship of Transparency International was electoral. This, at a time when members of the Lava Jato task force, like director Dallagnol, where planning their resignations so that they could run for office themselves.

The following is a transcript and translation of an excerpt of Minister Gilmar Mendes’ October 15 justification of vote on ADPF 944. The entire plenary session of the Supreme Court that day, including the full speech made by Minister Mendes, can be watched here. Deliberations on ADPF 944 begin at 3:14:14.

On Transparency International

Minister Gilmar Mendes: The partnership between the Lava Jato and the Greenfield operations involved Transparency International Brazil, a multinational NGO based in Berlin which is supposedly dedicated to promoting anti-corruption practices. As I have emphasized before, the truth is that Transparency International acted as a veritable accomplice to the Lava Jato task force and the abuses it perpetrated within the Brazilian Criminal justice system.

On December 9, 2014, Transparency International signed a memorandum of understanding with the Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office (Ministerio Publico Federal/MPF) and the Attorney General, to establish an agenda for cooperation in the fight against corruption. Since then, the NGO claims to have collaborated with the MPF in producing anti-corruption knowledge, supporting whistle-blowers, providing technical training, and conducting awareness campaigns. A scrutiny of this partnership, however, reveals actions that were less than republican and deeply connected to financial and private interests, bordering on illegalities.

Some episodes from this long relationship are noteworthy. Transparency International was appointed by the MPF to compose the so-called Social Curatorship Committee of the so-called Lava Jato Foundation to help manage its resources, and its own representatives may even have gotten seats on that board. In the case of the leniency agreement struck with the Operation Greenfield prosecutors, Transparency International’s participation was even more revealing, and more blatant. In 2017, the prosecutors responsible for Operation Greenfield signed a memorandum of understanding with JBS corporation and Transparency International to formalize a management and execution schedule for resources earmarked for social projects according to the company’s leniency agreement. The Attorney General approved this initiative after Transparency International repeatedly asked to be included in this specific leniency agreement, which involved a billion-dollar sum earmarked for social projects.

Supreme Court Minister Gilmar Mendes reading his statement on TI in Brazil’s Supreme Court on October 15, 2025

Following his approval, a specific action was launched under the existing memorandum of understanding between the Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office and Transparency International to fully execute the leniency agreement. As a result of this MoU, Transparency International was put in charge of managing 2.3 billion reais for social projects, with decision making power over which projects to fund. The MoU’s terms were unclear and lacked proper controls. Because of this, it is impossible to know if Transparency International was even remunerating itself with these funds.

During this period of Lava Jato and similar operations Brazil produced a type of Brazilian singularity, a jabuticaba - a type of corruption fighter that really likes money. It is a singularity. It’s the idea that the fight against corruption can be profitable, even on an international level, because what we see later is cooperation with Swiss prosecutors and people from the DOJ, who, start providing services in Brazil in a kind of revolving door. That Swiss prosecutor, Lentz. Lentz ended up seeking employment here in Brazil. In other words this was was an international criminal organization.

Minister Alexandre Moraes: “And some of our people sought employment in the United States.”

Minister Gilmar Mendes: Indeed! You know? It’s a, a thing... This prosecutor brought evidence from Switzerland and handed it over here in a supermarket bag. This is a level of informality the World had never seen. This Republic of Curitiba [a nickname for the Lava Jato task force and colluding local judiciary] was really very creative, very inventive. And this informality is a trademark of theirs.

I know a former judge of the German Federal Court of Justice who is a director at Transparency International. I hope to have the opportunity to tell him about these facts some day. But we see later from [the Telegram leaks revealed in] Operation Spoofing that in Brasilia, besides Bruno Brandão from Transparency International, who was also frequently present in Curitiba, Joaquim Falcão was acting on behalf of the Getulio Vargas Foundation to help create this foundation. The revelations from the series of reports known as Vaza Jato and Operation Spoofing show that Bruno Brandão, then representative of Transparency International in Brazil, was a true partner for the causes of the Public Prosecutor’s Office with the head of the Lava Jato task force, Deltan Dallagnol.

This cozy relationship between the task force and the NGO is well illustrated in a report published by Agencia Publica entitled “Lava Jato’s Alliance with Transparency International“. One passage of the article reads:

“In June 2017, the chief prosecutor of Lava Jato [Deltan Dallagnol] asked Brandão to help him think of strategies to build international support for the investigation . ‘I was thinking whether there could be an international declaration of support saying that it was important for the country’s economic development that emphasized the need for the investigation to proceed within the law’, he wrote in a private chat on Telegram on June 2, 2017. As a solution, the executive director of Transparency International proposed to Dallagnol that it publish a a study that would credit Lava Jato for Brazil’s economic recovery.”

See how cretinous they were? See how bold they were?

“I think we have several options and we should start acting quickly,” Brandão responded. “We can start looking at this on Thursday. We are thinking of starting a survey on the perceptions of the largest foreign investors in Brazil about what they think of Lava Jato, if it is good for the economy or not. And I would doubt that an investor, looking at the medium and long term, would say no. If Brazil is beginning to recover, we can start crediting that to your work. Putting that in the mouth of the foreign investor would give it much more credibility and would dismantle one of the arguments that critics repeat the most.”

Brandão contacted Dallagnol in 2018, when the National Council of the Public Prosecutor’s Office opened an administrative complaint against then-prosecutor Carlos Fernando dos Santos Lima (now retired) for a breach of decorum—a charge resulting from his criticisms of former president Michel Temer and the Supreme Court in the press and on social media.

Dallagnol showed concern that the case would open a breach for a complaint against public statements that he himself had already made on social media. While privately criticizing Carlos Fernando’s stance, Brandão heeded Dallagnol’s request. That day, the prosecutor received no response. On May 10, he again pressed for a position from Transparency International. “Bruno, do you think TI could release something balanced, as always, about freedom of expression by next Monday? It’s good to revisit this kind of text because, as Minister Alexandre argues, freedom of expression is frequently used as a smokescreen for the attacks we are now suffering in the court’s actions,” he wrote.

This time, Brandão answered that he would try to write something the next day. After several follow-up messages, Brandão, who was providing a remunerated advisory service to Dallagnol, finally published a note on Transparency International’s (TI) Facebook page on May 22, 2018. In it, TI expressed concern about threats to prosecutors’ freedom of speech and urged the council to define “breach of decorum” through a general rule, not a single case. This general interpretation was crucial, as it aimed to prevent a scenario where Dallagnol could be investigated for his own statements. Dallagnol had made it clear to Brandão that he needed this public statement from TI to exert political pressure.

In another conversation, dated February 2017, and also reported by the media, the head of the task force shares the details of a political endeavor he was starting.

“Dude, I am starting a new project with the Getulio Vargas Foundation: the revenge of the ten measures (laughs), with Joaquim Falcão and TI. I sought them out with the goal of expanding on the ten measures for political reform, bids, budget, etc. We will remove the parts that were criticized from the original ten measures and develop a series of other proposals. This is phase one, the proposals are being finalized. We are trying to involve the largest number of actors possible as consultants. What I see is that many people make generic alternative proposals or simply criticize the ten measures, but they do not make articulated proposals for the debate table. The idea is to make this happen, generate concrete proposals like the ten measures. Afterwards, as phase two, disconnected from the first, I will coordinate with movements with whoever is more strategic, to give a seal of approval, according to objective criteria, to candidates for the 2018 elections. It will be for candidates who commit to the ten measures who have no criminal record. The goal is to seek some degree of political renewal and bring people to Congress who are committed to change. In phase two, the MPF will not appear. FGV and TI, therefore, Transparency International, have already agreed to phase one, but we are starting in the shadows. Please keep it confidential for now.” At this point, the project was taking on a distinct electoral bias. This demonstrates that the Task Force members collectively aspired to realize a specific political-electoral project, leveraging the support of both official organizations and informal contacts to do so.

The facts referenced here are listed merely as examples. I could mention others that further demonstrate the scenario of total confusion between the actions of the prosecution team on the Lava Jato Task Force, their personal interests, and the actions, in this case, of Transparency International. And here, one must also register the acephalous state of the Attorney General’s Office itself, which was headed by prosecutor Rodrigo Janot during most of this time of sad memories. The instrumentalization of an NGO as an arm of the Task Force’s political and media defense, along with the attempt to co-opt other institutions like the Getúlio Vargas Foundation, which has a history of substantial contributions to Brazilian society, further demonstrates this blurring of interests. This same indistinction is also evidenced by the positions held by the individuals involved, such as Joaquim Falcão. As both the director of the FGV Rio Law School and a board member of Transparency International Brazil, Falcão was an early and public enthusiast of Operation Lava Jato.

Transparency International positioned itself to manage multi-billion dollar sums acquired through settlements made by prosecutors from the MPF. These funds were to be handled either via the Lava Jato Foundation or through the management of an endowment that they attempted to establish with fines levied in Operation Greenfield.

In conclusion, the public agents involved in the Lava Jato Foundation case exploited loopholes in the regulations governing the allocation of funds from plea bargains and leniency agreements. They used these gaps to maneuver billions of dollars in a surreptitious and opaque manner to serve improper purposes. The failed foundation that Transparency International attempted to establish under Operation Greenfield was designed to follow the same model. These episodes conclusively demonstrate the need to establish precise parameters and explicit prohibitions for the judicial allocation of funds from legal settlements. Without such reforms, we risk a recurrence of the regrettable scandals witnessed in Operation Lava Jato.