{"id":488,"date":"2015-07-19T14:31:13","date_gmt":"2015-07-19T18:31:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bringingfreudtofraud.com\/?p=488"},"modified":"2015-07-23T09:34:22","modified_gmt":"2015-07-23T13:34:22","slug":"corruption-brazil-10-u-s-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bringingfreudtofraud.com\/?p=488","title":{"rendered":"CORRUPTION: BRAZIL 10, U.S. 2?"},"content":{"rendered":"

(By Joe Koletar<\/a>) Or, to paraphrase an old TV host, \u201cNow, for a really BIG show\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

Is this an example of a really big, and corrupt, Farmer\u2019s Market?<\/p>\n

The Wall Street Journal of April 7, 2015 carried the following Page One article:<\/p>\n

\u201cBrazil Cracks Open Vast Bribery Scandal,\u201d by Will Connors and Luciana Magalhaes.<\/p>\n

The article indicates that a man named Paulo Roberto Costa, a former oil executive, had a problem, but had been able to successfully stall and evade it for a significant period\u2026 until prosecutors began to go after his family for potential evidence tampering. Then the game changed. Facing six stern prosecutors in a small office, he began to talk, and talk he did. He talked of money generated through inflated invoices, of money-laundering to hide that money, and of bribes paid to politicians and regulators. All told, hundreds of millions of dollars.<\/p>\n

Mr. Costa not only gave evidence to Brazilian prosecutors, but also to Brazil\u2019s Congress. A public uproar resulted, much like what in the U.S. we could call \u201cCostagate.\u201d Others may well come forward, to help themselves by belatedly confessing their sins, and seeking refuge among the company of angels. It happens all the time, in the U.S. and abroad.<\/p>\n

One hopes the prosecutors are young, since they have a long road ahead of them, particularly when high-priced lawyers become involved, as they always do. Negotiations will take place, deals will be made, and the dance will continue. But this begs the essential issue \u2013 why did the hundreds who had to know what was going on not come forward? Perhaps a few did, and were ignored or silenced. (Costa only came forward when he thought his family was in danger.)<\/p>\n

More recently, the Speaker of Brazil\u2019s House announced he is splitting with President Dilma Rousseff\u2019s government for dragging him into the corruption probe at Petrobras, Brazil\u2019s state-controlled petroleum company. This speaks to a poisonous political and business environment in that nation.<\/p>\n

We seem to never learn the lessons of the past. In my generation we sought to free the people of South Vietnam (SVN) from a corrupt government and an external threat. Actually, the two were closely intertwined. We won the war militarily, but could not teach, or force, the people of SVN to be free, although we did try to win their \u201chearts and minds.\u201d We have been doing it now for over a decade in the Middle East, and one dictator seems to replace the previous dictator.<\/p>\n

How do we succeed? Armed revolution is not the answer, but neither is passive acceptance. History teaches us that the only thing that seems to work \u2013 to stoke the desire of the people to be free \u2013 is the non-violent tactics of\u00a0Gandhi and Martin Luther King. Those worked.<\/p>\n

“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”—Martin Luther King, Jr.<\/em><\/p>\n

Comments are welcome.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2015<\/p>\n

Joseph W. Koletar<\/p>\n

Join us for more insights into behavioral forensics (behind fraud and similar white collar crimes) from the authors of <\/span><\/em>A.B.C.s of Behavioral Forensics<\/span><\/span><\/a> (Wiley, 2013): Sri Ramamoorti, Ph. D., Daven Morrison, M.D., and Joe Koletar, D.P.A., along with Vic Hartman, J.D. These distinguished experts come from the disciplines of psychology, medicine, accounting, law, and law enforcement to explain and prevent fraud. Because we are inspired to bring to light and address the fraud problems in today\u2019s headlines, we encourage our readers to come back and revisit us regularly at BringingFreudtoFraud.com.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(By Joe Koletar) Or, to paraphrase an old TV host, \u201cNow, for a really BIG show\u2026\u201d Is this an example of a really big, and corrupt, Farmer\u2019s Market? The Wall Street Journal of April 7, 2015 carried the following Page One article: \u201cBrazil Cracks Open Vast Bribery Scandal,\u201d by Will Connors and Luciana Magalhaes. The … Continue reading CORRUPTION: BRAZIL 10, U.S. 2?<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-audit"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bringingfreudtofraud.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bringingfreudtofraud.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bringingfreudtofraud.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bringingfreudtofraud.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bringingfreudtofraud.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=488"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/bringingfreudtofraud.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":493,"href":"https:\/\/bringingfreudtofraud.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488\/revisions\/493"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bringingfreudtofraud.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bringingfreudtofraud.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bringingfreudtofraud.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}