Operation Car Wash — Operação Lava Jato — began in March 2014 as a modest inquiry into black-market money dealers using petrol stations and car washes to launder cash. Within months it had swallowed Brazil's largest construction firms, its biggest oil company, and a substantial portion of its political class. One early casualty was Galvão Engenharia, a major contractor that filed for bankruptcy protection directly as a consequence of the scandal's fallout. It would not be the last. The investigation, launched by federal police and prosecutors in Curitiba, worked outward from small-time doleiros to a Petrobras refining executive, then to a cartel of contractors, then to politicians across the spectrum. By the time prosecutors were done issuing the first round of charges, executives from six of Brazil's largest construction firms had been accused of channelling kickbacks through the Petrobras scheme to pay political parties. Professor Sergio Lazzarini of business school Insper offered the optimistic read: at least the scandal proved Brazil had institutions capable of investigating powerful people. This is the kind of silver lining that is technically correct and yet somehow makes everything feel worse.