Operation Car Wash began in March 2014 at a petrol and car wash complex in Brasilia, Brazil's capital, and it was initially thought to be routine.

The Federal Police team had the location under surveillance believing that it was the centre of a money -laundering operation run by Alberto Youseff, a former convicted criminal known as the "doleiro de doleiros" - the money launderer of money launderers.

When it was discovered in one of Youssef's intercepted emails that he was paying for a Land Rover for an executive of Petrobras, Brazil's national oil company, it immediately raised suspicions.

{articleGUID}

The executive turned out to be Paulo Roberto Costa, the man in charge of refining and supply. Costa became the main target in the first phase of the Car Wash investigation and was arrested.

Deltan Dallagnol, the lead Federal Prosecutor for the case, says that investigators uncovered "evidence of money laundering" totalling some 26 million Brazilian reals ($8m). Criminal charges were brought against Costa, who negotiated a plea bargain with authorities.

"That allowed for an exponential expansion of the investigation," Dallagnol says. "It was the big bang of the Car Wash Operation."

Never before did Brazil export corruption like it did in the Car Wash case. Bruno Brandao, head of Transparency International

Unprecendented bribery, corruption, money laundering

Costa admitted that the Land Rover was just one of many bribes he received to issue contracts to construction companies, and told law enforcement officials participating in a task force set up to pursue the case that the bribing scheme was much larger than anything they imagined.

Corruption in the supply division he oversaw, Costa said, "was the tip of the iceberg".

{articleGUID}

Bruno Brandao, the head of Transparency International in Brazil, says, "Never before did Brazil export corruption like it did in the Car Wash case."

He adds that the problem of corruption in Brazil is systemic, and that in the Car Wash scandal, "the mechanism of corruption was traditional - overcharging of contracts and the setup of company cartels. What is new is the scale, the amounts of money and number of people involved - officials and companies. The dimensions of this case are what makes it extraordinary."

Federal police inspector Felipe Hayashi, who heads the Financial Crimes Unit of the Car Wash taskforce, says the investigation "reached people of the highest rank and level of responsibility. That's something that has never happened before."

Investigators learned that there was a cartel of companies that dealt with Petrobras. According to a secret agreement that existed for more than 10 years, the cartel would nominate one of its members to be awarded each Petrobras contract - for refineries, oil rigs, and other multimillion-dollar projects.

"We secured documents that laid out the operation of the cartel in terms of championship rules for different sports," says Dallagnol. "There were 16 championship players and their objective was to 'maximise' prizes in national and international markets alike. Obviously, these companies would never openly admit cartel arrangements in a clear way, so they tried to disguise them as championship rules for different sports."

The cartel rules resulted in steep overpayments for the work done. Petrobras executives were bribed to go along, and the cost of the bribe built into the contract. In fact, the scheme stretched far beyond Petrobras to contracts for stadiums for the 2014 World Cup, the 2016 Rio Olympics and other major infrastructure projects throughout the country.

The Odebrecht bribery machine

On June 19, 2015, the taskforce moved against the cartel players.

"It was time to take a step which had never been taken before in history; when big businessmen were finally reached, people who had been considered princes of enterprises in Brazil," says Dallagnol.

Twelve top-level executives were arrested, among them Marcelo Odebrecht, CEO of the company that bears his name. Odebrecht is the largest construction company in Latin America. Its bribing operation typified that of cartel members and was the most extensive in the region.

Marcel Odebrecht was held without bail, and less than a year after his detention he was sentenced to 19 years in prison for corruption, money laundering and criminal association.

For decades and decades, in Brazil, you had to apply grease for everything. If a citizen wanted to obtain an ID, he certainly would have to pay something to a public agent to expedite the process. Sergio Foguel, member of the Odebrecht Board of Directors

We headed to Salvador in northeast Brazil to get the Odebrecht Company's response to the scandal.

The business was founded in 1944 by Marcelo Odebrecht's grandfather, and the city is still its headquarters. Sergio Foguel, a long-time member of the Odebrecht Board of Directors, agreed to talk to us.

Despite the conviction of its CEO, the company still operates in more than 20 countries around the world and had revenues of about $26bn last year.

"There is no excuse to justify those acts of misconduct," Foguel says. "But for decades and decades, in Brazil, you had to apply grease for everything. If a citizen wanted to obtain an ID, he certainly would have to pay something to a public agent to expedite the process".

Our reporter, Gustavo Gorriti, wanted to know why the company had consistently denied any wrongdoing for months and months during the investigation.

"Despite all our strength as a company, we carried out acts within our organisation that today would be completely inadmissible," Foguel says. "There was a collective blindness. Initially, corruption was tolerated and later, it expanded in an incredible way."

'Plug and play. It was serial corruption'

According to authorities, Odebrecht had a division of "Structured Operations" that ran an intricate off-the-books accounting system and a bank to bribe not only company executives, but also politicians.

This started to become clear when Marcelo Odebrecht began talking in hopes of reducing his 19-year sentence.

In testimony to prosecutors captured on audiotape, Odebrecht admitted that his company bribed politicians from all the major Brazilian parties in exchange for appointing Petrobras executives at the public company. Dozens of congressmen, senators and ministers have so far been implicated in the scandal.

Odebrecht's testimony dealt a body blow to the Workers' Party of former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, and his successor Dilma Rousseff.

Amid a deep political crisis, Dilma Rousseff was impeached in August 2016. Two weeks later, Lula was formally charged with corruption in connection with the Car Wash scandal.

While Brazil's elites were being held to account, investigators were also making steady progress on the international front with the help of the US Department of Justice. The country is one of the world's main destinies for financial transactions.

"This provides the United States jurisdiction over a good deal of money laundering crimes that happen around the world," Dallagnol says. "The US acted in a very efficient way, identifying accounts kept in their country to launder money and delivering documents very quickly.

In December 2016, Odebrecht pleaded guilty to American charges that it provided almost $800m in bribes for more than 100 projects in 12 countries. It agreed to pay a $3.5bn fine and disclose details of its corrupt activities in Latin America and Africa.

According to Brandao, "Odebrecht, at least in the 12 countries it operated, had the same system, the same mechanism - plug and play. It was serial corruption."

From Brazil to Panama: Fake companies and big deals

Odebrecht's guilty plea in the US set off investigations throughout Latin America. Key to those efforts was deciphering how the money flowed from the company to corrupt officials through countries like Panama that specialise in offshore banking.

Rolando Rodriguez, who heads the investigative unit of the Panamanian newspaper La Prensa, says that "From Panama, money went out to officials from Brazil, officials from Peru and other parts of the world."

Panama's police investigators uncovered a Panamanian company tied to Odebrecht called Contructora Internacional del Sur.

{articleGUID}

"It was a fake company that received money from Odebrecht and sent it out to accounts in different countries, especially Switzerland," Rodriquez says. "So, the laundering structure was set up using companies, most of them from Panama, as well as bank accounts, most of them from abroad."

Many of the shell companies used by members of the Brazilian construction cartel to dispense bribes were set up by Mossack Fonseca, the law firm at the centre of the Panama Papers leak, which exposed the financial dealings of some of the most powerful and wealthy people in the world.

"Mossack Fonseca is one of the oldest firms that work on setting up shell corporations," Rodriguez says. "So, by arriving here in Panama you resolve the problem of having to travel to 10 different countries to get 100 corporations."

Panama was not only a good transit point for corrupt payments. It was also a place to land large construction projects at inflated prices. With projects of some $9bn, Odebrecht is the most important construction company in Panama. Between 2010 and 2014, according to the US Department of Justice, Odebrecht paid tens of millions of dollars in bribes to secure public works contracts. One of the most profitable was building the Coast Highway.

I do harm to a country for $2 or $3bn. I agree to pay $300m, $500m or a billion and, after some time, I walk away free. What a business. Jose Antonio Dominguez, legislator

"Panama ended up paying a great deal for a project that should have cost much less," says Jose Antonio Dominguez, a legislator with the country's governing Panamenista party who has been questioning the pricing of the project for years. "That project, without any change, suddenly was awarded for $189.5m instead of $133.5m. Why that $60m difference? For what?"

In July 2017, Odebrecht reached an agreement with the Panama authorities to pay $220m in fines and provide information about public corruption to settle bribery charges in the country.

"I do harm to a country for $2 or $3bn. I agree to pay $300m, $500m or a billion and, after some time, I walk away free. What a business," says Dominguez.

A vast web of political and corporate corruption in Peru

Tensions over the way Odebrecht conducted its business are growing throughout Latin America. The latest flashpoint is Peru, where the country's ruling establishment is reeling from its connections to the company.

Attorney Walter Alban served as the public ombudsman in Peru from 2000 to 2005 during the presidency of Alejandro Toledo, now accused of receiving bribes from Odebrecht.

"It's been demonstrated that there were transfers through offshore companies and close friends of the former president," he says.

Odebrecht wanted the lion's share of a multibillion-dollar highway project connecting the Peruvian coast to Brazil and they got it. Toledo has been charged with accepting a $20m bribe to steer them the business.

Jorge Barata, the head of Odebrecht in Peru, confessed in 2016 that he struck the deal in a meeting at a Copa Cabana hotel in Brazil that Toledo attended. Peruvian prosecutors are trying to extradite Toledo from the US to face bribery charges, which he denies.

Alban says Odebrecht didn't just pay off individual politicians. The company promoted its interests by gaining influence over the political system itself.

"The scheme Odebrecht had was not only related to bribes to get contracts," Alban says. "There was also this practice of promoting candidates and financing political parties, and not just one but all that might have a chance of winning."

In a videotaped confession to prosecutors obtained by Peruvian investigative journalism organisation IDL-Reporteros, Barata admitted to giving $3m to the Nationalist Party to help finance the 2011 presidential campaign of Ollanta Humala. Humala won and served as president from 2011 to 2016.

Corruption is not an issue of right or left, or ideology. But of a confluence of interests. Walter Alban, lawyer

Barata also claimed his company supported the left-wing Humala not only to promote Odebrecht´s interests in Peru, but to curry favour with Lula's Workers' Party in Brazil. "The Workers Party had an interest that all South American presidents share the same political and economic line as the Workers Party. Humala had those characteristics," Barata says.

According to Alban, Odebrecht had strong links with ex-president Lula's party in Brazil. It is described as a "geopolitical strategy" he says, indicating that "corruption is not an issue of right or left, or ideology. But of a confluence of interests."

Both Humala and his wife, Nadine Heredia who was general secretary of the Nationalist Party, are now in prison awaiting trial.

Keiko Fujimori and her Popular Force party are also under investigation for taking money from Odebrecht to fund her 2011 presidential bid. Fujimori says the accusation is false but Marcelo Odebrecht has testified that his company helped finance her campaign.

On February 28, Barata met Peruvian prosecutors and confirmed that the company gave money to support Fujimori in the presidential race - $1.2m.

"There aren't political parties any more" says Alban, "There are groups that define themselves as political, but strictly speaking, they are supported in all cases by illegal funds".

A new attitude towards corruption in Latin America

Last December, the Car Wash scandal arrived at the doorstep of Peru's current president, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski. Peru's congress launched impeachment proceedings against him, alleging his companies received almost $800,000 from Odebrecht while he was serving as a public official.

Kuzcinsky vehemently denies all wrongdoing and narrowly avoided impeachment but prosecutors continue their investigations. In his February meeting with prosecutors, Barata said Odebrecht also contributed to Kuzcinsky's 2011 presidential campaign.

Peru's Attorney General Pablo Sanchez is overseeing the investigation of Peru's high-level officials for dealings with Odebrecht. "We are talking about corruption and a series of very complex crimes that involve several different governments, not just one but at least three," he says.

When asked why the corruption connected to the Car Wash case went so far in Peru, he says: "Our country is not prepared to face cases of this nature or prevent crime," Sanchez says. "Our country has trusted too much in the behaviour of state officials and the politicians in our country. So in that way, we haven't advanced at all, or just very little. What we do now, proper investigations, proper convictions, will help prevent this from happening again in the future."

Car Wash in Brazil today is no longer just an investigation, nor a process. Lavo Jato today in Brazil is an attitude, an expectation that impunity will start to fade away. Bruno Brandao, head of Transparency International

Every week seems to bring new developments around the world in connection with the Car Wash scandal.

Governments from Ecuador to Angola are dealing with the repercussions of the case. Meanwhile, back in Brazil, the Supreme Court is considering former President Lula's appeal of a 12-year sentence he received for corruption. His plans to run for president this October are in danger of being derailed.

"Car Wash in Brazil today is no longer just an investigation, nor a process. Lava Jato today in Brazil is an attitude, an expectation that impunity will start to fade away," Brandao says.

Alban agrees that a new attitude towards corruption is arising in Latin America. "Democratic societies in which we can say that the problem of corruption is at least controlled," are those in which the public watches over how public resources are spent and demands "that public authorities be held to account. Because of the Car Wash case that is something that I believe is beginning to happen."