Corruption is increasingly understood as a form of collective, social behaviour. It slips easily across borders and involves sophisticated financial strategies and transactions to launder the stolen money. 

Yet the nexus between corruption and money laundering is poorly understood. So too are the structures, functions and mechanisms that enable these crimes.

This working paper is based on an empirical investigation of corruption and illicit exchange related to the so-called “Lava Jato” or “Odebrecht” scandal. Focusing on former Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo and his laundering of bribes obtained from the construction giant Odebrecht, the analysis aims to test the usefulness of applying a network lens to better understand the mechanisms underlying grand corruption cases.

The Panama Papers provided proof to the world of something that had long been suspected: the secrecy havens – jurisdictions in which global financial flows were hidden in ways that not even those entrusted with enforcing the laws and regulations of countries around the world could detect – were being used by those engaged in a host of nefarious activities, from tax evasion to corruption and even to child pornography.