The Brazilian legal system is based on Civil Law tradition. The powers of the Union are the Executive, the Legislative and the Judiciary. The President of the Republic is the head of the Republic.
Brazil has demonstrated a concerted effort in recent years in combating both crimes of money laundering and of disguising assets, rights and valuables. The major sources of illegal proceeds are crimes against the financial system such as fraud and embezzlement, drug trafficking and tax evasion. In Brazil Money Laundering is associated with domestic crime, including the smuggling of contraband goods and corruption which generate funds that may be laundered through the banking system, real investment of financial asset markets.
Illegal money leaves Brazil to find protection in an offshore market and comes back disguised as an investment or as a loan.
In 1998, the Law n° 9.613 was passed to fight this type of crime in Brazil. This law gave legal form to the crime of money laundering and made possible the creation of the COAF, the 'Brazilian Financial Intelligent Unit'.
COAF plays an important coordination role. It cooperates with the authorities in charge investigating these crimes and works toward more efficient operational integrations. Over 24.000 suspicious transaction reports have been received as of September 2003, and the Federal Police have undertaken an increasing number of money laundering investigations.
As the result of this work, a high level of information exchange between the Anticorruption Authorities and COAF has been reached. This cooperation is extremely important to the Brazilian Authorities in order to combat these crimes.
The Minister of Justice created the DRCI (Department of Asset Recovery and International Cooperation) wich is the central authority for international legal cooperation and is in charge of the coordination of the ENCLA (National Strategy against Money Laundering).
Because of this devotion to preventing corruption and money laundering, Brazil joined in June 21, 2000 the GAFI.
In Brazil the public prosecutors form a body of autonomous magistrates working both at federal and state level. The prosecutors' main job is to promote justice. This is why their functions include trying criminal cases as well as requesting for acquittals when they are convinced of a defendant's innocence, even during trial. The prosecutor's office decides weather criminal offenses will or will not be indicted, with the exception of those rare cases in which Brazilian law allows for private prosecution.
