Blowout

The discovery of tens of billions of barrels of oil in fields far off the coast of Rio de Janeiro was billed as one of the biggest finds of this century when it was announced in 2006. Many hoped it would deliver a bonanza for education and health and make Brazil one of the world’s major economies. What happened?

On February, 14, 2014, at 5: 30 AM during the final phases of drilling the exploratory well at Foz do Amazonas (Mouth of Amazon River), Poseidon, a $ 400 million oil rig suffered a catastrophic blowout, a geyser of seawater erupted from the marine riser onto the rig, shooting 480 ft into the air. This was soon followed by the eruption of a slushy combination of drilling mud, methane gas, and water. All 110 workers were presumed killed in the initial explosion. After approximately 5 hours, Poseidon sank. Was it a sabotage? Or, an accident?

What began as an investigation into the causes of the destruction of Poseidon, quickly turned into something much greater, bribery, kickbacks and money laundering involving staggering sums of money, uncovering a vast and intricate web of political and corporate racketeering. The case would go on to discover illegal payments of more than $20bn to company executives and political parties, put billionaires in jail, drag a president into court and cause irreparable damage to the finances and reputations of some of the world’s biggest companies. It would also expose a culture of systemic graft in Brazilian politics, and provoke a backlash from the establishment fierce enough to impeach one president and convict another for organized crime.

At the center of the bribery, kickbacks and money laundering criminal is a cartel operated by two passionate uninhibited Brazilian women, a Wall Street High-Frequency Trader, an Environment Protection Agency Administrator, and a reckless thrill-seeker young American offshore oil rig engineer, in a torrid love triangle. Action filled romance, intrigue, and betrayal of two women by a thrill-seeking man. Sex does not happen in a tranquil world. Love, sex, money and betrayal make for excellent storytelling. Who won?

On September 6, I’ts 5 AM in Rio de Janeiro. A salmon pink dawn draped the horizon, and the police helicopter hovered under patches of pale blue sky. There appeared to be police activity bear a villa in Avenida Visconde de Albuquerque, Leblon, Rio de Janeiro. Motorcycle officers, followed by police cars with sirens blaring and lights flashing, rushed to a big villa in Leblon, where they found a man’s body floating face down in an infinity edge swimming pool. Who killed him and why?

A murder has been reported from one of those big houses in the three hundred blocks. A financial superstar ‘master of the universe’ is involved—one of the biggest. The body of a young man was found floating in the pool of his mansion—with bullet holes in his back and one in his stomach. Close to the swimming ...