Celebrate Brazil’s ambush of a corrupt delegation from Equatorial Guinea

Brazil’s federal law enforcement agents are showing they won’t rest until the battle against corruption is won.

Consider what happened last Friday, when a delegation from Equatorial Guinea arrived in Sao Paulo. Led by the president’s son, Vice President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mangue, the delegation had expected a fun little jaunt along the Brazilian coast. But it wasn’t to be.

Because Brazilian federal police were waiting for them at the airport with a warrant to search their private jet. And there, according to the Brazilian Globo newspaper, authorities found a suitcase stacked with $1.4 million and other bags stuffed with 40 watches worth an estimated $15 million. The haul of oddities (Globo’s report shows a particularly gauche diamond studded watch) has been seized by Brazilian authorities because it was not protected in diplomatic baggage.

That’s good news. As a senior capo in the Obiang crime family, this rebuke to the vice president is a small but significant win for the people he is supposed to serve but instead dishonors. The Obiang dictatorship siphons off Equatorial Guinea’s oil to fill personal bank accounts while that small nation’s citizens continue to suffer without basic government services. A small country blessed by immense oil wealth, Equatorial Guinea has what it takes to be a wealthy nation. Instead, most remain in poverty thanks to the corruption.

This seizure also represents a big win for Brazil for another reason: foreign perception. With Brazilians struggling against the vast “Car Wash” corruption scandal involving political and business cronyism, some wonder what Brazil’s future has in store. Brazil’s president is facing corruption charges, his predecessor, Dilma Rousseff has been impeached, and Rousseff’s predecessor, Lula da Silva, is in prison and banned from standing in this October’s presidential election.

This roll call of ignominy seems like a disaster for Brazil, but it is actually a good thing, demonstrating how the rule of law is finally overcoming structural corruption. Indeed, encapsulating the sea change, Brazil’s favorite to win the presidency is a former military officer dedicated to reducing crime.

Yes, Friday’s search and seizure might only have drained a drop from the ocean of corruption. But by stopping Obiang, Brazil has shown it intends to fight relentlessly in the battle for good government.

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