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Nelma Kodama
was an enabler.
You could just call her,
and the problem would be solved.
My high point wasn't getting to the end,
where no woman had ever gotten.
It was getting there with style.
NELMA KODAMA: THE QUEEN OF DIRTY MONEY
Did I break the law?
What is "breaking the law"?
Black-market dollar dealers are the law.
The law of their own bank.
They don't abide
by the Central Bank's rules.
It's all about honor codes, character, your word...
When I sat at my desk and started taking calls,
it was like conducting an orchestra.
What a beautiful thing. You're buying and selling currency.
You don't know who is on the other end,
however, that person trusts that you will deliver.
It's called "white-collar crime" for a reason.
You can always seem cleaner than you really are.
Dollar dealer Nelma Kodama was the first arrest in Operation Car Wash.
She was arrested while trying to travel to Italy with 200,000 euros
hidden in her underwear.
How could Beethoven play?
Or Mozart?
How did they do it?
She was convicted of corruption,
organized crime, and currency evasion.
She's the one who sang "Amada Amante," remember?
That iconic moment of her singing
with some congressmen singing along.
It's like a banana republic.
Her understanding of a crime is different, but financial crimes are still crimes.
And she also posted on social media when she took her own ankle monitor off.
At the ruling, the judge stated that she had done a disservice
to Brazilian society...
It's unacceptable.
You can't trust anything she says.
Behind every fortune, there is a crime.
There is money laundering, there is a dollar dealer,
there is a Nelma.
At the fringes of politics, there is a whole ecosystem
to keep dirty money flowing.
Because of corruption, the need to pay bribes...
JOURNALIST AND AUTHOR OF "THE ORGANIZATION"
...distribute illegal advantages,
there is a whole ecosystem of black-market dollar dealers
and financial operators
who work to circulate this money
in this underworld under the law's radar.
There's the term "operator."
JOURNALIST, FOUNDER OF PODER360
In Pulp Fiction, there's The Cleaner, who fixes things.
She was a type of "cleaner" for congressmen
and for some dollar dealers.
The enabler may seem secondary, but they are absolutely key
because they connect the dots and close the loop of criminal transactions.
Life is a game.
I go all in.
If I win, I win it all.
If I lose, I lose it all.
Doing things by halves is no fun.
SÃO PAULO BRAZIL
When I earned my first million dollars,
I was less than 30 years old.
I'd say, "I'm a millionaire."
Soon after, I lost three million dollars.
I woke up saying, "I'm going to kill myself."
Because the problem isn't losing what you earned.
It's losing what's not yours.
Can you imagine? "Dollar dealer loses three million
and throws herself in a dumpster."
That wouldn't suit me.
I said, "No, I'm better than that."
"If I lost three, it's because I can make three."
I took a shower.
I put on my best Chanel perfume,
and I said,
"I'm good to go."
"I'm capable of making three, four, five."
Welcome.
Welcome to my home.
I built every detail in this place.
Every detail carries my personality,
my taste, my soul, my life, and my work.
Speaking of work,
this is my desk.
This is a desk that I bought at an antique store,
and I brought it to Brazil.
I bought all my furniture in Italy.
I was dead set on knocking down walls
because I like the spaciousness, the freedom.
"Hey, dollar stealer! Dollar stealer!"
I say, "No, it's dollar dealer."
- Hey, dollar stealer! - Hey, what's up?
Dollar dealer.
That title follows me around.
On the days before coming to prison,
my name was mentioned on the radio every day.
"Brazil's biggest dollar dealer is coming to the Mata Escura complex."
The journalist would say,
"If she gets her hands on a phone, she'll take over the yard."
"She'll take over the prison."
I love shoes.
The leather,
the subtlety,
the design of the heels.
I'm sure I could wear a different pair every day for over a year.
I had seven cars.
One for each day of the week.
Seven.
Oh, jewelry.
That's my weakness.
Jewelry, jewelry, jewelry.
Even the word sparkles. "Jewels."
I think a woman without jewelry is a naked woman.
I never made plans.
But I always had a plan. Does that make sense?
LINS SCHOOL OF DENTISTRY NELMA MITSUE PENASSO KODAMA
I'm a dentist.
I wanted my financial freedom...
to set up my practice...
buy a two-bedroom apartment...
drive an imported car and make $5,000 a month.
That's what I wanted.
So that was a plan.
My family owned a slaughterhouse
and a butcher shop in Diadema.
And all of a sudden, I started working on the financial side of things.
At the time, we worked with hot money,
which was money borrowed from one day to the next.
I'd take out the loan to buy dollars.
Then my manager said,
"Nelma, I'll introduce you to a currency exchange office in Santo André."
She said, "Ask for César."
César was actually Júlio César Emílio,
Norma Regina Emílio's brother.
She was a Federal Revenue agent,
married to João Carlos da Rocha Mattos, a federal judge.
I became a VIP client.
One day, I was there and I said, "I'll have dinner with this guy."
"He might be interesting. He's a dollar dealer."
That's how my relationship with him started.
And how I started my craft as a dollar dealer.
From girlfriend to black-market dollar dealer.
It happened very fast.
I had never worked with this kind of market
of buying and selling dollars.
And I was just supposed to answer the phone.
I couldn't trade. Especially because I didn't know how to trade.
The dollar was always rising.
Júlio would yell, "The dollar is at one real!"
"Now, it's at 1.20
and selling at 1.60!"
So I started to get it, and I said, "This business is kind of cool."
Rocha Mattos was arrested by the Federal Police in 2003,
accused of participating in a scheme that included
the sale of court sentences.
NOVEMBER 2003
He was in trouble with a well-known operation,
"Operation Anaconda."
The investigation points to 59 people
involved in extortion, document forgery,
the sale of court sentences, and influence peddling.
He ran a scheme that facilitated the sale of legal services.
PUBLIC PROSECUTOR FOR SÃO PAULO STATE
This money had to be hidden in some way.
That was the first time we heard
that a woman was involved in this money laundering scheme
through a small travel agency operating as a currency exchange office.
That was the first time I had heard of Nelma Kodama.
Júlio had done business
with a dealer's brother who wasn't very well organized.
It was a scam.
It was a mess,
and it prompted a meeting between black-market dollar dealers,
but Júlio didn't attend it.
They were the dollar dealers. They were the monarchy.
It was a very closed group.
They set the rules of who could operate in that market.
In a male-dominated environment, you need to make your mark.
There was a large table with the dealers,
and they were all sitting down.
Everybody stopped when I arrived.
They looked at me.
"I'm here representing Júlio César."
"I'm authorized to make all deals
with whoever wants to do business with me."
Those who didn't know me, got to know me.
And what my role would be going forward.
She wanted to grow at that point.
She wanted to show the old dealers, who thought she was too young,
that she was going to be big.
FORMER RIGHT-HAND MAN
The older traders didn't talk to Nelma. They never would.
They were very tight-knit and restricted.
Luccas worked with me for 12 years.
I invite Mr. Luccas Pace Júnior to take a seat at the table.
I've worked at several banks, always in the international departments.
AUGUST 2015
DEPOSITION AT PETROBRAS PARLIAMENTARY INQUIRY COMMITTEE
I've worked with setting up and closing banks.
I've worked in extrajudicial liquidations.
I have vast knowledge in this area.
I worked in the financial market and in banks.
I used to own a brokerage house and had a serious problem
from 2000 to 2001.
A corporate problem. I lost my businesses and my companies.
I started working in the informal market. It was all I had left.
I had a friend in the market that said, "I'm working for Nelma."
I'd heard of her.
She contacted me.
I started going to Santo André.
It started with one day, then two, three. Then I realized
it was every day.
At one point, Júlio became very fearful
of Rocha Mattos's situation.
According to the Attorney General, Rocha Mattos is one of the leaders
of the organization selling court sentences.
Júlio was...
afraid that something might happen to him, that he'd be arrested or something.
He was shaken up
and depressed. He didn't want to leave the apartment.
I picked up the slack,
since I was an employee.
All while holding the grenade.
The transition from employee to owner
happened when we opened Hawaii Exchange and Travel.
It ceased being Suntur.
Another partner demanded that the partnership be dissolved
to become Hawaii Exchange and Travel.
I became the owner
because Júlio didn't want to come back,
and I had to conduct the orchestra by myself.
Nelma used to operate in the old market.
It was a much simpler market.
I had very few clients, but I started closing the exchange deals
for her at the banks.
She started building a technical structure.
She improved her capacity to meet higher demand.
That's when things grew and she moved to São Paulo.
I started...
from scratch.
I was nobody at the height of the black-market dollar dealers.
In the 1970s, '80s, '90s,
it was morally acceptable
to have a dollar dealer working for you.
Everyone knew it was illegal, but Brazil...
Brazil isn't Germany, it's not a Teutonic, Anglo-Saxon country.
Here, there are things that everyone knows are sketchy, but they do them anyway.
Inflation leaped at rates of two to three percent a day.
And the only solution Brazilians had
was to buy a strong foreign currency
that wouldn't devalue daily
like our currency, whatever it was at the time.
It's challenging to remember all the currencies.
They have had many names over the years.
That's why there were those huge lines at currency exchanges.
Because you wanted to take your money,
which had lost a lot of value,
to buy dollars
because the value was increasing every five minutes.
JULY 1994 LAUNCH OF THE "REAL" CURRENCY
From a devalued currency to a strong currency.
The Real will enter our daily lives, replacing the Cruzeiro Real.
With the Plano Real in 1994, with the currency stabilization
and the normalization of the Brazilian economy,
the use of dollars for asset protection
no longer played a central role.
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR TRANSPARENCY INTERNATIONAL
Black-market dollar dealing became much closer
to traditional criminality and the macro corruption of major crimes.
DOWNTOWN AREA SÃO PAULO
Trade with China grew exponentially.
Not the trade we talk about nowadays, but the informal trade.
It was right when I started operating heavily
at Rua 25 de Março, in Pagé plaza.
São Paulo's main commercial center, Rua 25 de Março.
Police officers and fiscal authorities seal off Pagé plaza,
which is considered a symbol of contraband in Brazil.
People would get in touch with me,
close a deal, and collect $100,000 or $200,000.
It was hard to believe.
One or two hundred thousand.
I created an operation
where I'd sell them the dollars
for them to take those dollars,
charter a bus and go to Paraguay
to buy the merchandise and pay cash in dollars at the stores
before returning to São Paulo with the merchandise.
CIUDAD DEL ESTE PARAGUAY
The buses started getting robbed.
So I thought to myself,
"Let's look at the main stores in Paraguay."
They'd buy goods from China or the US
and pay via illicit wire transfer.
So they didn't need the money in cash.
A wire transfer? You think of a wire, but there is no wire.
There's a local dollar dealer in contact with someone there.
Let's say they're in the US.
They'd send a wire.
We used to say "wire" because it was a telex or a telegram.
They would say, "A guy needs $200,000 in New York."
The person goes to New York,
and a courier would arrive and hand $200,000 to that person.
How did the person over there get paid?
There were so many transactions
that someone in Brazil would need
the equivalent of $200,000 in the local currency, whatever it was.
So, the dollar dealer in Brazil would give it to the person in Brazil,
and it would all be even.
The money never left Brazil or went to the US.
And the transaction was done via an illicit wire transfer.
I had a lot of credit.
So I'd say to one store,
"Leave $10,000 available for so-and-so,
social security XYZ. He's coming to collect it."
So I'd charge a percentage from the store,
and I'd charge a percentage from the recipient too.
I'd make money twice.
Nothing wrong with that.
I mean, there was.
Because it was illegal.
I remember crossing the Ponte da Amizade between Brazil and Paraguay
many times as a cash smuggler.
Then I'd organize a dozen kids in a line.
I'd tell them, "Each of you will cross with $10,000." How crazy am I?
And I'd just watch and say,
"If you steal from me, I'll kill you and throw you off the bridge."
I'd make them walk in single file, and I walked behind them.
Why? If one got caught, I'd lose 10,000, not 100,000.
So, I had a set group of boys
on weekends to collect the money in Paraguay.
Then I started getting robbed.
It was no joke going to places like Pagé plaza on Rua 25 de Março
to collect all that money because it was pretty crowded.
There were bags and bags of money.
She had a team that collected
money from the stalls. That's how she operated.
With that, we needed bunkers to store the money...
so that I could run my operation
and send the money abroad.
And contrary to what the authorities thought at the time,
that I was running a small, makeshift operation,
millions upon millions were being circulated.
It was utterly insane.
Each client had an account on Nelma's books.
Like a modern-day digital bank.
So, the customer had a balance and would say,
"Use my balance. Pay it in China."
"Convert my balance to dollars in cash."
I had to have a lot of cell phones.
My employees didn't understand
why I had so many cell phones.
I would say that cell phones are cheaper than lawyers
and better than jail.
That's when I started growing too big.
So, I thought I needed a code name.
"Duda." Why?
"Duda" could be Eduarda or Eduardo.
Many people called her "auntie," but she didn't like it very much.
She liked using the names of movie stars.
Cameron Diaz, Brigitte Bardot, Angelina Jolie,
Julia Roberts.
I worked on the fringes.
I had to protect myself and you.
Because I took care of your money as well as my money.
The legal banking system is also based on trust.
It's a depositary,
a custodian of deposits that don't actually exist.
So just like the legal banking system,
the illegal system is also largely based on trust.
But we can't be romantic thinking that there isn't any cheating
within crime, just like mafia feuds.
So, it is largely based on trust.
But there is certainly a lot of cheating within crime.
I was a bank.
They would call me and say, "Duda, you come get."
"Come get money mine."
"Come get $100,000 for store."
Two hours later, we'd be taking money from the register.
Their credit would be in a store,
so that they could pick up their merchandise.
There was a powerful dollar dealer in the region.
A Chinese woman, Mrs. Yan.
Mrs. Yan was the dollar dealer for the Chinese.
We were competitors.
So Mrs. Yan didn't like us.
Mrs. Yan got into a personal fight
with a Chinese man.
Then this Chinese man had the Federal Police raid her office.
Mrs. Yan called Suntur.
And I answered the phone.
That whole thing frightened me.
So I got in my car
and rushed over to her currency exchange to rescue her.
I put her in the car and we fled.
I don't know if she's still alive.
I just know that we became great friends and allies.
What's her name?
Yan?
I don't know her. I've never heard that story.
I really can't think who that is.
I think she existed because I've heard stories about Mrs. Yan.
I don't know if she's alive, what she does,
where she's from or where she went.
Mrs. Yan was one of the women who inspired me.
Nelma is exaggerating. She likes being grandiose.
Nelma's story sounded so confusing to me
because she talked about Beto, the other guy, and I didn't understand it.
Nor did I want to.
I needed to work.
Since I didn't really know her story and I saw inconsistencies,
I understood that she mixed business with pleasure.
I was never much for dating.
And when I fell in love,
I fell hard.
What was Nelma's type in men?
FRIEND
She had no type.
As long as he was interesting,
that was enough.
Alberto Youssef was a great love of hers
and an overwhelming passion.
Alberto Youssef is a notorious money launderer.
Whenever you mention money laundering, he is always involved.
Because he's an expert.
How did I meet Beto?
It was in February 2000.
I had done a currency deal with someone.
But they were late on payments.
I started pressuring them and they said they had bought from Beto.
I said, "But who is Beto?"
I heard that Beto lived in Londrina.
He transported valuables.
I started doing business with him.
He kept calling me.
One day, he said, "I'm coming to meet you."
I thought, "You know what? Let's meet this guy."
And there he was, shorter than me.
Beautiful eyes,
but extremely poorly dressed.
He was wearing a rumpled shirt.
FORMER DOLLAR DEALER
The sides of his shoes were all worn out.
And he had an old 007 briefcase.
"If he's married, it's a bad marriage. His wife doesn't take care of him."
But as soon as I looked at him, I thought, "Holy shit..."
"I'm done for."
"This is... It's over."
To operate a scheme that may have laundered
about ten billion reais, dollar dealer Alberto Youssef,
held in custody in Curitiba,
set up a vast network of contacts in and out of the government.
What did I see in him?
I saw everything and nothing. Or vice versa.
Alberto Youssef is a symbolic figure
of how the world of dollar dealers works.
He did everything he could to survive,
and he's good with numbers and money.
He was born and raised in the Triple Frontier,
near Foz do Iguaçu and Londrina, where financial crime is a reality.
As well as smuggling, you have a series of people
around the border carrying out illegal activities.
And I believe he became familiar with the logic
of how the financial system works when he was a kid.
2003 BANESTADO CASE INVESTIGATIONS
For almost four years, Paraná State Bank,
a state-owned company, was harboring what may have been
the largest dirty money laundry in Brazil's history.
Alberto Youssef was already carrying out money laundering schemes
through CC5 accounts.
It was known as the Banestado Case.
The dollar dealers assigned frontmen at the Triple Frontier,
especially Paraguayans,
and opened CC5 accounts in their names at Banestado branches in Foz do Iguaçu.
They were foreign accounts, so you could send money through them.
That's when Brazil was opening up and you could carry out
legal transactions in foreign currencies.
2003 FEDERAL SENATE
This case prompted a Parliamentary Inquiry Committee.
The inquiry was buried.
At the time, Alberto Youssef had many friends in Brasília.
He started creating a large network of influence,
and in the 1990s, a politician from Paraná, José Janene,
started gaining prominence as a federal congressman.
He has now passed away.
He started making deals that later were considered illegal.
Alberto Youssef was Janene's operator. He was Janene's courier.
FORMER FEDERAL CONGRESSMAN
Paraná's federal court sentenced former federal congressman
Pedro Corrêa to twenty years and seven months in prison
for corruption and money laundering. Judge Sérgio Moro gave the ruling.
APRIL 2015
According to reports, the former congressman received bribes
on behalf of the Partido Progressista
for the Petrobras corruption scheme.
Before Petrobras, there were other institutions
used by Janene to arrange party contributions
from businessmen through Youssef.
He carried out the operations.
He'd receive dollars, send dollars abroad, exchange the dollars into cash,
and deliver the money to Brasília.
And we'd distribute it among public officials.
Alberto Youssef was involved once again.
And he knew a dollar dealer.
And he turned to her when he needed cash,
especially in US dollars.
When he had trouble delivering the money, he'd say,
"I'll sacrifice myself and visit the Japanese lady."
"I'll have a quickie and bring the money."
That's what he'd say.
I had no idea who she was or what she looked like.
But he'd say that she was a beast
at solving money problems.
She was Satan in a skirt.
This is the type of game I like to play.
I didn't have any other operation.
I had an underground operation.
Because cash leaves no trace.
We lived together for nine years.
They were good times.
I was madly in love with him.
He was arrested three times during that period.
His last agreement meant that he could no longer operate.
He couldn't work with currency exchange.
So we agreed that I'd do the deals instead.
I can't comment on her trading on his behalf when he wasn't able to
because I was just getting to know her and her structure.
I really didn't have access to...
But did you meet Mr. Alberto Youssef?
I did.
- Dario Messer? - No.
- Raul Srour? - Raul, yes. I did.
Raul was my Jewish friend.
FORMER DOLLAR DEALER
He had impeccable taste and smelled divine.
He was classy and elegant,
but he had no money.
He was partners with other dealers. One of the last few old dollar dealers.
I have no idea
how she met Raul, but she did.
And she, apparently, started doing business with him,
and it became a relationship.
She did mention having heated arguments with Alberto,
but typical lovers' quarrels.
She was Youssef's lover.
They'd fight. He didn't want to leave his wife for her, and all that.
Sometimes, he'd come over. She threw his clothes out
of the top-floor window.
We actually really only had one fight.
Only one.
He was away a lot.
He had to go to Brasília, for example.
He would stay there, then travel, and I'd say, "Where are you going?"
"What's going on?" I thought he was cheating, but he wasn't.
Now, I know that he'd arrive late because he was meeting with contractors.
So he was making money
behind my back and sleeping with me.
I said, "One of these days, you'll come home and there'll be a man
in our bed."
"There'll be a man in our bed."
And that's what happened.
It was Valentine's Day.
I bought two first-class tickets.
From São Paulo to Paris.
The Ritz Hotel.
The Presidential Suite.
And...
He was bewildered when he heard that I was going to Paris.
"I'm the one not spending Valentine's Day with you."
"I won't."
I invited my Jewish friend to come with me.
It was a sensational trip.
It was really after meeting Raul
that she started to get to know the world better.
That's when I went into Chanel, and they closed the store for me.
And I started shopping.
He started teaching me.
"Look,
with your money, you can buy this and that."
All tasteful.
Because up to that point, I had only made a lot of money.
This is the view from our beautiful room.
How's that?
And Beto would call.
Beto would call the hotel, and Beto...
That whole drama.
How's that for you?
Do you like it?
We even have a little birdie.
When we got back to São Paulo,
I called Beto.
I imagined many things, except him saying,
"We're done."
MARCH 2014
Dealers, businessmen, politicians,
and one of the country's largest companies, Petrobras...
A blend that led to the complex bribery and money laundering scheme
uncovered by Operation Car Wash.
Nelma knew all about the scheme that Youssef ran with the businessmen
because she participated in many trades.
The dollar dealer was arrested in 2014, while trying to board
a flight to Milan with 200,000 euros hidden in her underwear.
I wasn't running.
I was going to a furniture fair.
"You are under arrest."
"We received an anonymous tip that you are carrying drugs."
I said, "Drugs?"
"No!" I had 200,000 euros.
That was the only illegal thing.
I didn't declare it to the tax office because it was closed.
That's not my problem.
I had a code...
with someone.
If I called and said, "I'm going to Disney,"
they were supposed to get rid of everything.
Burn everything.
So I called them and said, "I'm going to Disney."
I mean...
Operation Car Wash is considered the country's largest corruption
and money laundering investigation.
The discovery that a currency exchange office at this gas station,
in the heart of Brasília, in plain sight, was moving dirty money
led to the name "Car Wash."
The same officer that arrested me called me.
I thought he was bringing my release order.
Boy, was I wrong.
It was an arrest warrant by the then judge Sérgio Moro,
who was triggering Operation Car Wash.
Judge Sérgio Moro convicted 140 people,
including former president Lula and prominent businessmen.
Those who committed acts of corruption, powerful people...
SENATOR, FORMER FEDERAL JUDGE
...are answering to the courts of justice.
No one knew what was happening.
I went to a room where there were at least 17 men,
all with their heads down pretending not to know each other.
I thought, "My God, what's going on?"
Luccas was there.
They transferred us. We were taken to a room.
That's when I saw a very scared Raul in a straitjacket.
I believe he must have resisted arrest.
Criminal organizations led by dollar dealers were targeted first.
Among those dollar dealers was Alberto Youssef.
I think they arrested Nelma to confirm Youssef's story
when he was arrested.
She'd had a connection to him since the Banestado Case,
so they knew she was close to him.
INTERROGATION
"We want to know everything about Alberto Youssef."
"If you tell us, you'll be out of here in a week, tops."
"Otherwise, you can be sure you'll rot in jail."
"So I'll rot."
In politics, you're like a card player.
A card player is never out of money.
They might be broke, but they'll always find money to play.
Politicians are the same.
I never denied that I had help from businesspeople.
You need to raise money for elections because it's expensive.
You need other people's money.
Because the party fund won't get anyone elected.
The person in office for five, six, seven terms spends big.
That's what the funding is for, otherwise, you don't get votes.
Politicians won't come straight out to a businessman and say,
"I want millions of reais in exchange for such a favor."
They choose financial operators.
They're professionals.
There used to be illicit wire transfers.
Now, we talk a lot about Bitcoin.
There are ways to make the money you receive here go further abroad.
Behind any political scheme,
there is a financial scheme, like the dollar dealers.
So Youssef partnered up with Dario Messer,
and he became a dollar dealer, a Messer underling,
who is the biggest dollar dealer in Brazilian history.
He had so much money and ran so many schemes
that he could subcontract people.
Alberto Youssef starts climbing the ranks in his role as a financial operator,
and gradually, he starts working on his own
and becomes a businessman with his own businesses.
We did reconnect.
In 2013, he came to me and said,
"We're going to work on an operation that will last a year."
"And after that, it's over. No more currency deals."
"We'll make money and won't need anymore."
It was to get several congressmen elected and who knows what else.
I said, "Okay."
The task force is investigating embezzlement at Petrobras...
They charged bribes from construction firms working with Petrobras.
I wasn't part of Operation Car Wash because I never operated for Petrobras.
I was a dollar dealer.
But I had done absolutely nothing with Petrobras.
In fact, I didn't even know why I was there.
There was that too.
She managed to run into two lovers locked up in jail.
Alberto Youssef and Raul Srour.
They put me in a cell by myself.
There were three cells side by side with mattresses that smelled of urine.
I believe there were 20 men in the other two cells.
Mr. Paulo Roberto Costa arrived on the third or fourth day,
a gentleman from Petrobras. Beto was already there.
FORMER PETROBRAS DIRECTOR
That's the hardest moment, when you ask yourself,
"What am I doing here? What does the future hold?"
You'd see that bunch of guys,
all those grown men crying,
"I want to leave."
Atheists suddenly became Evangelical,
Christian or macumba practitioners.
It was all new and scary.
It was hard for everyone. Really hard.
Especially for Raul.
His son was also arrested.
We didn't know how big Operation Car Wash was.
We had no idea. It was the first day. It wasn't in the news.
We were the news.
Almost everyone believed it would be resolved within days.
Youssef also believed it would be resolved quickly.
Raul did too. Like any other operation before Operation Car Wash.
Nelma's mood would change quickly,
and sometimes, the same subject that made her laugh
would upset her minutes later.
I was the first woman arrested in Operation Car Wash.
It's hard to accept that you're in prison, but you've got to accept it.
Why? Because you're in denial.
For example, I'd say, "I don't want a fan because I'm getting out."
No, you're not getting out. So, what do you do?
You have to make your cell comfortable.
She'd clean her cell about five times a day.
She's kind of crazy.
But we got along well because I got a ton of attention.
She'd cook for me. She fussed over me.
And then she started taking care of me.
Pedro is quite the character.
Alberto Youssef wouldn't talk to her, but she'd talk to him.
He wouldn't say, "Good morning." He wouldn't.
Beto would say, "You... I don't want her in here!"
Pedro would say, "She can stay on my side!"
Alberto Youssef had never read a book in his life.
So I gave him his first book to occupy him and get some sleep.
We'd play cards, dominoes and chess.
But at some point, playing poker or anything else
would get too serious.
So we'd think up something new, like playing Categories.
Alberto Youssef didn't know it, but it was a serious game
that was even worth your Sunday bun.
Sunday's bread wasn't from the same place as the rest of the week.
It was a highly contested game when bread was involved.
I once won two buns in a single weekend.
I always thought Luccas was very smart.
But... There is always a "but."
Operation Car Wash brought us both down.
He was detained with me, and I was very disappointed with him
because when I was arrested, they asked him,
"Are you going to talk about Nelma and her assets?"
"If you don't, you'll go to prison."
He didn't last five minutes. He told them everything.
Federal Judge Sérgio Moro approved the first leniency agreement
of Operation Car Wash.
The agreement, signed at the 13th Federal Court of Curitiba,
is regarding defendant Luccas Pace Júnior.
He was accused of financial crimes, money laundering,
and criminal association as a subordinate of alleged dollar dealer
Nelma Mitsue Penasso Kodama.
Luckily, I spent five months in the Federal Police holding cells.
Some went to penitentiaries.
Since I had performed services for the detention facility,
we were able to get them to separate
the cells for Operation Car Wash from the ones for other crimes.
There was a difference
because they were all white-collar crime prisoners.
New arrests by Operation Car Wash investigating corruption at Petrobras.
One is Marcelo Odebrecht, president of Odebrecht,
the country's biggest contractor.
Marcelo arrived.
There was only one bed in my cell.
The others had bunk beds. I had one bed. Marcelo slept on the floor.
Marcelo was also obsessed with tidiness.
He'd organize the fridge, and I'd mess it up
and say, "Marcelo, the fridge is messy."
He'd take off like crazy to organize the fridge.
Then I'd mess it up again.
All of a sudden,
a top-level Odebrecht secretary arrived.
Maria Lúcia was incarcerated with us.
She arrived there in total shock
and extremely fragile.
They needed her testimony to force Marcelo Odebrecht
to start making his statement.
She asked me about it.
And I'd say to her, "You need to weigh up the alternatives."
"Your freedom or your conviction."
"I've been here for a long time."
"You can be sure that if you give them what they want,
you'll probably be released."
"But now, you need to settle it with your conscience."
We tried telling her, "Don't do this."
"You've been with the firm for 30 years. Your boss is next door."
Nelma said, "You'll get screwed."
"I'm in here. I know what it's like."
"If you don't snitch, it'll be the end for you."
Maria Lúcia Tavares was the first Odebrecht employee to collaborate...
She revealed the existence of a dedicated bribery department at the company.
She testified before the judge...
Nelma can quickly read people as soon as she meets them.
She figures out what that person is like.
It was an explosive testimony.
Nelma convinced her to talk about Marcelo.
Nelma probably did that for the negotiation
of her own leniency agreement because anything you bring is important.
So this could count in your favor, so to speak.
Through that arrangement,
I believe I may have helped.
I don't know if she gained any objective benefits
in terms of her sentence, but she started to be seen
by Operation Car Wash's team in Curitiba
as a collaborator, as someone they could count on.
She really did help at the time.
This matters to her. She needs to be in charge.
She needs to say,
"I can help you." That's what I think it is.
She's like an artist.
Ladies and gentlemen, Nelma Kodama.
Nelma, thank you for coming.
Look how cool!
Look at how important I am.
The president is below me.
That's so cool!
She didn't play the victim.
Who can forget her taking and posting pictures
wearing an ankle monitor?
It's a slap in the face.
I don't know if she's trying to be an influencer
or wanting to show off her fashionable monitor.
I was afraid of going out.
Then I said, "You know what? I'll go out wearing my monitor."
"Why hide it?"
I think she sort of enjoyed being this Hollywood character,
the outlaw. The female bandit.
On tonight's show...
Do you not consider yourself a bandit?
No, I don't consider myself a bandit.
Perhaps the exposure of her job and even her pride
in calling herself a dollar dealer is her personal characteristic.
I said, "I'm taking up almost half a page on a Sunday."
Maybe she'd be like that in any job.
How does a dentist become a dollar dealer?
That's a subject for another interview.
She liked showing off.
People would recognize me and ask to take selfies with me.
I thought that was funny.
Once again, the whole page.
But I became a celebrity because I sang
at the Parliamentary Inquiry Committee, at a moment when I...
I didn't plan to do that at the Petrobras Parliamentary Inquiry Committee,
where the largest corruption operation in the world was being conducted.
And all of a sudden, a parliamentarian wanted to know about my personal life.
I declare the 18th Parliamentary Inquiry Committee meeting open,
with the goal of investigating illegal practices and irregularities
within the company Petróleo Brasileiro SA, Petrobras,
between 2005 and 2015.
This meeting is a public hearing to obtain statements from:
Nelma Kodama, René Luiz Pereira, João Luiz Correia...
"Is that Nelma? The Nelma who went to school with us?"
All of a sudden, we see Nelma at the Petrobras inquiry.
FRIEND
I even called my wife, who also studied with us.
She was nearby, and I said, "Márcia, hurry. Look who it is."
FRIEND
We were perplexed.
And we thought, "My God, what happened?"
I am here today under investigation, since I've already been
convicted and sentenced
by Judge Sérgio Moro.
Small towns are like that. Everybody knows each other.
Were you Alberto Youssef's lover?
I lived maritally with Alberto Youssef from 2000 to 2009.
I was at a Parliamentary Inquiry, which I believed to be serious,
and a parliamentarian kept insisting, "Were you his lover? Were you?"
"Lover" is an all-encompassing word.
The lover is the wife, the friend...
- I'm not passing judgment. - But I'm...
- I'm answering. - I'm just reading what was written.
And I'm explaining.
I'm explaining.
I'm just reading. Is that a problem?
- May I continue? - Yes.
"If you want to know
if a lover is a friend, a wife, a companion, a partner,
then I was his lover."
"There is even a Roberto Carlos song..." And at that moment,
everyone started singing with me.
So I just went like this.
You can't take Nelma Kodama seriously.
She's the one who sang "Amada Amante," remember?
That iconic moment of her singing with some congressmen singing along.
There was nothing left for me to do, and he thought
I was showing off. I wasn't showing off.
I was protecting myself from his question,
which was neither subtle nor very elegant.
And I'm an elegant woman. Spare me.
I met Nelma at Lins Technical College in the 1980s.
We were 15, 16, 17 years old.
Oh, yes, Nelma was pretty rowdy.
The rowdy crowd sits at the back of the classroom
and bands together to mess around.
Nelma came from a wealthy and traditional family in Lins.
I met Nelma when we took our admission exams for Lins College.
The freshmen get hazed.
And we'd go in costumes.
- Look at Nelma as a geisha. - She's dressed as a geisha.
We graduated 30 years ago from Lins School of Dentistry.
The whole gang that you already know...
In all my years at dentistry school,
I was the nerd who never went out and didn't go to parties.
I never went anywhere.
I started going out during my last semester.
Nelma, Ione, Gisela...
- Ione, you, Robertinha... - Robertinha.
It's rare for Nelma Kodama to have friends.
- Artur! - Darling!
Many friends just lost touch.
Because they weren't Nelma Kodama's friends.
They were friends with Nelma Kodama's money.
My dear Artur. Do you remember when we danced in Milan?
I do.
It was always like that.
- She'd say, "Artur!" - I'd say, "Artur!"
FRIEND
"Artur, come with me to Paris." And I'd say...
She'd say, "Artur, I'm sending you a copy of the ticket. Come. It's tomorrow, okay?"
I'd say, "Tomorrow?"
"Yeah, tomorrow." And then...
This is my great friend.
My accomplice.
- Not accomplice. - No. Calm down, everyone.
We don't want to compromise you, right, Artur?
I don't mess with dollars or euros.
Milan, Istanbul...
Istanbul is awful.
Oh, Artur. Istanbul was so funny.
She's crazy, unpredictable, and irresponsible.
Look, she's hiding! Look here!
I'm going home now.
Because it's time to be under house arrest.
Because 10 p.m. is...
I had my college friends, and when we were really stressed,
I'd say, "Guys, shall we go for a ride?"
"Let's do a flyby over Lins."
It was a plane owned by Nelma's family.
It just sat at the airport, and once in a while, we'd go there.
She'd arrange it all with the pilot without her mother knowing.
She'd organize everything with the pilot, but she'd fly the plane too.
It's not that I knew how to fly.
The pilot would let me take control of the plane.
All of a sudden, I realized she was switching places with the pilot.
"Relax. I've got this."
It was a dangerous game because I didn't have a license.
I hope the pilots forgive me.
We'd take some beer to drink.
And we'd circle above the city.
He did some loops, but she'd just go up and down.
And what did she do? Laugh.
She cracked up at our panicked faces.
They were enjoying doing something the "wrong" way.
Not me. I was up there,
thinking about what I was seeing down below.
And I'd think, "Man..."
"I wasn't born to be a dentist."
"This is not going to work!"
APRIL 2022
LISBON PORTUGAL
Nelma's in the news again today.
She was arrested in Portugal accused of something
even worse than the previous accusation: international drug trafficking.
The investigation points to a woman as the organization's leader.
Nelma Kodama is on the investigators' list,
accused of laundering money
for a complex drug trafficking network.
I went from Operation Car Wash empress to drug trafficking empress.
I was sitting on a hotel balcony
when nine or ten policemen came in and said...
"You're under arrest."
In Portugal, Nelma is considered to be extremely dangerous.
LAWYER
While Nelma was detained
at the Santa Cruz do Bispo Detention Facility,
she was in a system
where she had no contact with other inmates.
I had some idea about Operation Car Wash because I was a dollar dealer.
But with this operation, I had no idea what I was being charged for.
Investigations point to the dollar dealer owning
a portion of the 580 kilos of cocaine seized from the fuselage
of a Portuguese company's plane at the airport of the Bahian capital.
She got involved in this process, no doubt,
due to her relationship with someone else.
NELMA'S EX-BOYFRIEND AND LAWYER
I had a relationship with that person.
I was being betrayed by a nobody.
By a nobody!
No one knows who they are,
but everyone knows Nelma Kodama.
He is not an intelligent man.
He is not a criminal because a criminal,
forgive me, but at least a criminal has honor within the criminal world.
They keep their word.
I don't think she came to terms
with living an inferior lifestyle
after her Operation Car Wash arrest.
You pull it out,
then push it back.
Pull and push.
And so on.
She was left with nothing.
She couldn't get back into business, so she decided to enter the drug world,
which is a really serious crime.
It causes significant harm to other people.
Taking dollars from the rich to give to politicians was very different.
Being investigated for international drug trafficking
is a lot to bear.
I am someone who is completely and unequivocally against drugs. I am.
I am. I don't drink or smoke.
How could I sell drugs?
Nelma didn't accept extradition to Brazil
when it was first mentioned.
She didn't want to go to Brazil without being fully informed.
Then, she understood that it made sense to go back to Brazil
and defend herself in the case.
OCTOBER 2022
A dollar dealer convicted in Operation Car Wash,
who informed on businessmen and politicians, has been extradited.
She arrived last night in Salvador.
She was taken to the Federal Police Regional Superintendent Office.
FEDERAL POLICE
Nine people were investigated
in Operation Discovery.
I was the only woman.
I was the only person detained in Salvador.
I was there for three months because the case started there.
I went through hell.
It was the worst thing that had ever happened to me.
"Is this hell?"
I thought, "Is this hell?"
When you think things are bad, they can get worse.
I developed two wrinkles here.
And these two wrinkles...
I'm a dentist, so I know the muscles.
It's because I don't laugh.
So this starts to waste away.
It's wasting away.
JUNE 2023
Nelma was arrested and accused
of transnational crimes, drug trafficking and criminal organization.
LAWYER
Our main focus here is the issue of her freedom.
Do you know if they've signed it? Could you check for me?
Hi, Thiago. Good afternoon. It's Bruno again.
Can I call you in five? What time does your workday end?
My God, it's just to sign an official letter. Hopeless.
I spent six months in Portugal,
then I spent three months in Salvador,
and then four months here, in São Paulo.
Here, it was a piece of cake.
Girls, the release order has been issued.
I'm heading over there, okay?
I'll go and oversee it. I'll keep you updated. See you later.
SANTANA WOMEN'S PENITENTIARY
Counselor, he's finishing the release procedure and once he's done,
he'll call me. Then you can come in and wait...
No, we can do better.
We'll pull the car up right here, so she can get in.
Do you know what freedom tastes like?
It tastes bittersweet.
COURT GRANTS NELMA HOUSE ARREST
Nelma's not just a client, and it is a unique case.
I would visit Nelma twice a week in Portugal.
And she would also call me every day,
including Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays.
She would always listen to me,
always look at me.
She always looked me in the eye.
And we even talked about more trivial things.
How she felt,
her concerns,
including her health
and her future aspirations.
Let me help you.
She started feeling comfortable enough to vent,
which became more frequent as we got closer.
And, yes, now,
with Nelma, I can... I consider...
In fact, she often calls me "sweetheart."
- You look beautiful. - Who, me?
Some people said I'd never get out of prison.
That wore me down.
"Counselor Manuela, I'm never getting out."
"Of course you are."
"But what if I'm in here for eight or even ten years?"
"But what do you think I'm doing?"
"If you were going to be here for eight or ten years, I wouldn't be here."
Counselor Manuela, these are my lawyers, Counselors Bruno...
- A pleasure. - ...and Felipe.
Counselor Manuela accompanied me for the first six months.
There is also an ongoing case against me in Portugal.
She's overseeing everything there, and now, we have you.
Counselor Manuela, they are young, brilliant,
and they specialize in criminal organizations.
This is one of the reasons
why we changed strategies.
I said, "No, I must take a stand."
"It's not possible. If a first-class nobody can get out,
why can't I?"
We are really alike in many ways,
starting with our poor taste in men.
We laugh a lot.
A lot.
In fact, once we laughed about precisely that.
She said, "Look, Counselor, as soon as I get out,
I'll find you a boyfriend."
And I laughed and said, "If I go by your exes..."
It's like they say. Men came to steal from us,
humiliate us, and use us.
In Beto's case, for example, I had both a personal relationship
and a business relationship with him.
Our involvement in Operation Car Wash was due to her relationship with Youssef.
If it were just the normal market, perhaps we wouldn't have gone down.
Just like other dealers working with Youssef who didn't go down.
They didn't want Nelma.
And I said nothing about Youssef.
And to my surprise, I saw on television
that Beto was signing a leniency agreement.
Alberto Youssef received a reduced sentence in exchange
for pleading guilty to his Petrobras crimes
and providing evidence revealing the company's entire scheme.
"Wow, if he did that,
I hope he brings me along and protects me."
That's not what happened.
I said, "Well, life goes on. Let's move forward."
And that was that.
It's not about forgiving or not forgiving.
It's all good. We're even. Life moves on.
I wish everyone happiness.
To everyone. And life goes on.
Evidence of an illegal wiretap in Alberto Youssef's cell...
After much back and forth in court,
the defendant's lawyers secured a release order...
The task force lost steam after conversations
between two central figures were leaked: the then judge Sérgio Moro
and the then prosecutor Deltan Dallagnol.
Sérgio Moro, Deltan Dallagnol, and their group
made decisions that violated the law.
I've always acted in accordance with the law.
I've always acted based on the ethics of the judicial system.
Moro supposedly had given the prosecutors informal leads.
There were miscarriages of justice,
illegalities, unethical actions...
I never advised the Public Prosecutor's Office
to do anything.
Prosecutors are taking advantage of the exposure they received.
Sérgio Moro is the fifth confirmed minister of Bolsonaro's administration.
The former federal judge resigned as Minister of Justice and Public Security...
Sérgio Moro's daily schedule continues as an electoral campaign.
Several leaks raised questions about the former judge's impartiality
heading the largest anti-corruption operation in Brazil's history.
Operation Car Wash had 79 phases and 278 convictions.
The task force was dismantled in February 2021.
You could see the twist coming
because what goes up must come crashing down.
Vanity comes into it.
And when vanity comes into it,
you get lost in power.
Deep loneliness.
I felt a deep emptiness in her at the end of the day
when she headed home and everything was done for the day.
Like an artist or a comedian who is a nobody once they get home.
They're just a normal person.
I don't know how we reconnected. We talked and she said,
"I don't have anyone by my side. I don't have kids. I have nothing."
"So, was it all worth it?"
"Oh, but that's okay."
"Tomorrow is a new day. I'll make it. I'll do some business..."
She assumed that character.
I call it the "Nelma character."
I'm not a mom, so I don't know how it feels to give birth to a child,
but I've given birth to money.
Even without being central to the schemes, she caused a stir.
A dollar dealer that climbed the criminal ranks,
working the men.
Dirty money is dirty. But when it comes packaged
from the bank, it smells really nice.
But it's not the smell of purchasing power.
It's the smell of the money's birthplace.
That beautiful operation
of being a dollar dealer...
The credibility of making a call and saying,
"Transfer me a million."
Boom, it was in your account. "I'll pay you tomorrow." "Okay."
That's all over.
I believe the new digital payment methods
with tokens, NFTs, Bitcoin, and others,
make the traditional enabler role of the dollar dealer obsolete.
Cash and credit are dying.
Cryptocurrency provides a similar level of anonymity to cash.
I think I'd be a hacker. The person who figures out
how to make the money untraceable.
Her life is clearly dedicated to criminal activity.
My friend...
The idea of Nelma being a criminal is inconceivable to me.
I felt like a taxi driver.
I don't know the money's origin, or if that person paid me
with drug money or from selling a car. I don't know where it's from.
If Nelma says she's a taxi driver without knowing what's going on,
I'd say the best analogy is that she's driving the getaway car.
Someone is going to kidnap a person and she's the getaway driver.
It's a complex aspect of financial crime and this type of criminal organization.
Because you can always seem cleaner than you really are.
It's called "white-collar crime" for a reason.
Nelma can think that her understanding of a crime
is different from mine or other people's, but it's all the same.
It's a serious mistake to say that financial crimes and corruption
are minor transgressions and not blood crimes.
Ninety-eight percent of Brazil's deforestation is illegal.
This deforestation can only happen through corruption,
land grabbing, but also through the flow of illicit payments,
laundered by dollar dealers.
The country's engine is corruption.
Before the money got to me, it went through the large institutions.
It went from the businessman's or the politician's account into mine.
Operation Car Wash uncovered a corruption scheme never seen in Brazil.
But what I believe took place was a case of omnipotence,
thinking that since they were fighting crime, they could do anything.
We often saw that missionary instinct,
but when the system decides to react, that's when it gets you.
When the operation reached the Judiciary, it began to be dismantled,
but it never came close to the financial system.
It is estimated that money laundering accounts
for 5% to 8% of the world's GDP.
There'd never be a large corruption scheme without the collusion
of the Brazilian and international financial systems.
What was illegal?
I wasn't breaking the law.
They're never guilty.
The government's financial body, COAF, should oversee this, not me.
It's pure cynicism
facilitated by society's tolerance
of white-collar crime
and the white skin and light-colored eyes that walk the halls of power in Brasília
and the world of luxury.
Holding a major Swiss bank accountable,
or a big New York law firm,
or governments of European countries that looked the other way
and ensured that their countries benefited from money
from global corruption, from money laundering,
that's the ultimate challenge.
It is all outside the law. If I'm outside the law, everything is.
The question is, does the political system,
do the regulators and the established power
truly want to be ahead of crime, or is it convenient to lag behind?
I'd like to thank you, because you are my team.
- It'll be okay. - Of course it will because I'm innocent.
With the annulment of Operation Car Wash's ruling,
you are innocent.
And do you know why I'm innocent of this crime?
I'd never work an operation like that.
And if I did, it would've been successful because I'm not stupid.
WITH HER HOUSE ARREST ORDER LIFTED, NELMA KODAMA REMAINS FREE
AND AWAITS TRIAL ON DRUG TRAFFICKING CHARGES.
FOR OPERATION CAR WASH, HER LAWYERS ARE WORKING
TO ANNUL HER SENTENCE BASED ON PREVIOUS COURT RULINGS.
I'm going to tell you a secret. I'm allergic to money.
I have an allergy and it makes me itch like you wouldn't believe.
You have no idea.
I'm sorry.
I'm allergic to money.
Subtitle translation by: Érico Sanvicente, Elaine Scott