Prosecution in Brazilian specialized federal courts: cartography of money laundering, criminal organizations, and crimes against the national financial system trials

Abstract The paper provides a cartography of money laundering trials and criminal organizations, focusing on the performance of specialized federal courts, demonstrating the effects of institutional design over nearly thirty years. From the analysis of implementation maps of specialized justice, relevant questions emerge: (i) are there contrasting explanations for the creation of courts, justified by the low number of cases reaching federal courts shortly after the first years of the money laundering law’s promulgation, especially due to lack of knowledge and expertise in dealing with such crimes?; (ii) to what extent the creation of structures is related to the increase in money laundering and organized crime cases?; and (iii) what is the trajectory of prosecution in different states over the decades corresponding to the emergence and decline of specialized judicial policy? We adopt a descriptive approach by cross-referencing data on the existence of specialized courts with data on lawsuits. The mapping allowed for the spatialization of Brazilian states from 1996 to 2022 and the effects of criminal lawsuits for each state between 2020 and 2022. We identified a prior demand for specialization in organized crime. In contrast, money laundering lawsuits were nonexistent at the beginning of the specialization process and took time to materialize. On the other hand, crimes against the National Financial System were absorbed by specialized courts to justify the creation of judicial policy. These crimes began to have an expansive trajectory throughout the country, affecting the triad of macro-criminality in the specialized judicial system. Even with the specialization movement, effective money laundering and organized crime convictions are rare. Resumem El artículo ofrece una cartografía de los juicios por lavado de dinero y organizaciones criminales, centrándose en la actuación de los tribunales federales especializados, demostrando los efectos del diseño institucional a lo largo de casi treinta años. A partir del análisis de mapas de implementación de la justicia especializada surgen aspectos relevantes a considerar: (i) es posible oponerse a las explicaciones para la creación de los juzgados, que se justificaron por el bajo número de procesos que llegan a la justicia federal poco después de los primeros años de promulgación de la ley de lavado de dinero, especialmente debido a la falta de conocimiento y experiencia en el manejo de tales delitos; (ii) en qué me