Master and Car Wash Operation converge in political impact, but their circumstances differ sharply

Billions of dollars, public shock and the same recurring question, “How far will this go?” A decade after Lava Jato transformed Brazil’s political debate, the Banco Master case is producing a partly familiar script. Its latest chapter came Tuesday, when messages from banker Daniel Vorcaro to Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes became public. The disclosures also affected Prosecutor General Paulo Gonet.

Political and legal debate has increasingly compared the two scandals. Supreme Court Justice Gilmar Mendes, the court’s longest-serving member, has argued that the Master case repeats abuses allegedly committed by authorities in Curitiba, including the use of pretrial detention to pressure suspects into plea bargains. Several familiar names appear in both episodes. Senator Ciro Nogueira remains involved in unresolved matters from the Paraná operation. Former PSDB president Marconi Perillo and former Workers’ Party minister Guido Mantega, both prosecuted during the previous decade, have resurfaced through consulting contracts with Master. All three deny wrongdoing.

The investigations have exposed the bank’s influence networks and the aggressive methods of its leadership. Yet the article notes that such audacity is not entirely new among conglomerates seeking close ties to power. Odebrecht’s bribery department, offshore networks and admitted cash couriers offered a much larger precedent.

The legal trajectories remain sharply different. Lava Jato proceeded in parallel through lower courts and higher tribunals, including probes involving suspects with special jurisdiction. In Curitiba, authorities split investigations, indictments and cases at an early stage, producing convicted defendants months after the first operation in 2014. Critics say that strategy boxed in higher courts because practical results and issued sentences raised the political cost of overturning cases. The Master case has not followed that path: as far as is known, no formal accusations had been filed against those involved one year after the scandal broke.

The scandals also differ in scale and institutional impact. Lava Jato hit the country’s largest construction companies as a group and generated a rapid sequence of plea bargains, creating a domino effect. The Master case remains centered on Vorcaro and his immediate aides. At the same time, it has caused an unprecedented embarrassment for the Supreme Court through revelations involving the Moraes family law firm, as well as Dias Toffoli’s departure from the case’s rapporteurship in February. Prosecutorial activism has also changed. Under Rodrigo Janot, the Lava Jato task force operated almost as a separate institution and helped propel Deltan Dallagnol toward a political career. Gonet has not found grounds to investigate Supreme Court justices and opposed Vorcaro’s second detention in March. After appearing in the banker’s messages, however, he sought to invalidate a Federal Police report on the exchanges involving Moraes and accused Justice André Mendonça of abuse of authority. The shared feature, the article concludes, is the scandals’ explosive political effect.

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How far will this go?