Prosecuting the crimes of the powerful in Latin America: a comparative study between Brazil and Chile

This article draws on the theoretical framework of the Crimes of the powerful to analyze the political and criminal reactions generated by high-profile events involving this type of criminality in two Latin American countries, Chile and Brazil. The specific events are the so-called case of collusion of pharmacies and of fraudulent party financing in Chile, and in Brazil, the events that will result in the Lava Jato Operation. This is a qualitative investigation. The methodologies used will be case studies and comparative analysis. The main question is: what is the political-criminal reaction adopted by each country and its consequences? The main objective of the research is to verify similarities and differences between what happened in the two countries, and to ascertain the main reasons why, in Brazil, the window of opportunity was not used to make effective and structural changes in dealing with the phenomenon. The article is divided into the following stages: a) definition of the main characteristics of the criminality of the powerful and the difficulties in theorizing, mapping and dealing with it; b) a brief description of what happened in Chile and Brazil, respectively; c) a comparative analysis of the main differences between the political criminal reactions in the two countries, as well as their possible explanations.

Keywords
Crimes of the powerful; political criminal reaction; criminality in Latin America; economic crimes; Car Wash Operation