TEMAS DE COOPERAÇÃO INTERNACIONAL

in an increasingly globalized world, transcends national boundaries, that include drugs
and narcotics trafficking, arms trafficking, people trafficking, administrative corruption,
international tax avoidance, fiscal evasion, terrorism, environmental crimes, internet fraud,
sexual child abuse, etc. The combat to the money laundering crime has been one of the
greatest challenges because it is the financial arm of the transnational organized crime.
In Brazil, until l998 - when many countries already faced the money laundering crime
with determination - there was not even a law defining such crimes, which prevented the
criminal prosecution against the money laundering practices in the country. Only with the
Federal Law n° 9.613, of March 3, 1998, at the initiative of the then President Fernando
Henrique Cardoso, and the result of many struggles that we have undertaken, drawing on
the north-american experience and model, the crimes of money laundering and concealment
of assets, rights and values, were finally defined, establishing strict punishments and
preventive measures against the use of the financial system for the commission of such
crimes. It was established, during the time I was Attorney General of Brazil, through new
legislation, legal instruments necessary for the improvement of investigations and criminal
prosecution, nonexistent in the country until then, such as the awarded whistle-blowing
and the national system of witnesses protection, inspired by “plea bargaining” and in the
American system (Federal Laws n°. 9.034/95 and 9.807/99). Under such laws, the accused
or indicted who voluntarily cooperate with the investigation or criminal prosecution in the
identification of co-authors or participants in the crime, in the location of the live victim and
in the full or partial recovery of the proceeds from the crime, in the event of a conviction
may have his sentence reduced by one to two-thirds.
The resistance for many years to such innovations in Brazil (that we were able to overcome)
- innovations that were essential to the effective action of the Prosecutors Office,
especially in the fight against transnational organized crime (and that existed for years in
other countries) - were not only of an academical nature, considering the national judicial
tradition, but also and above all of political nature, on the part of sectors that intended
to maintain the system inefficient for obvious reasons. During the same period of time,
there were created in Brazil the first task forces to combat transnational organized crime,
also inspired by the north -american model, after reunions with the then Attorney-General
of the United States, Janet Reno, under the auspices of the Inter-American Association
of Public Prosecutions, of which I was President (from 1998 to 2000), later denominated
Ibero-American Association of Public Prosecutors, and with the support of the International
Association of Prosecutors, recognized by the UN as the representative institution of
prosecutors worldwide, of which I was Vice-President for seven years (1997 to 2004). Such
task forces, consisting of groups of members from the Prosecutors Office acting jointly
and in cooperation with the Federal Police, the Internal Revenue Service and the Central
Bank, have made effective teamwork in the fight against transnational organized crime.
During the same period of time, there were created the COAF - Council for Financial
Activities Control - and the National Anti-Drugs Secretary, support organizations in
combating money laundering and drugs and narcotics trafficking. Subsequently it was
created the NSCCML -National Strategy to Combat Corruption and Money Laundering. All
these institutions work in close cooperation with the Federal Prosecutors Office of Brazil
in combating transnational organized crime.
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