She had 200,000 euros in her underwear. “Those were very good times”

She was eventually sentenced to prison for trading in black market currency. At the time of her arrest, she was on board a plane. She hid banknotes worth over 200,000 euros in her underwear. Currently, you can watch a documentary about her on Netflix, entitled “Nelma Kodama: Queen of Dirty Money”. The film shows the world in which Nelma Kodama lived. A world of corruption, dominated by men at the time. She distinguished herself with the gift of persuasion, which allowed her to enter circles previously inaccessible to women. Thus, step by step, she amassed millions, which she then spent on bribes in Brasília, the capital of the country. When she was arrested on a plane, her photos appeared on the front pages of newspapers. The criminal was sent to prison in 2014. On June 20, 2016, under a plea agreement, she was placed under house arrest.

She traded in dollars a lot and had to keep the money in bunkers

The black marketeer, as she is also called, began trading currencies on the black market when she was only twenty-something. Nelma Kodama, now 47, emphasized in a newly filmed documentary that she was proud of her “achievements.” She compared running the illegal business to “conducting an orchestra.” She claimed that she was guided by, among other things, a “code of honor.”

To be a money merchant is to become the law. You follow your own set of rules, not the central bank’s rules.

– she claimed. Nelma Kodama was supposed to become a dentist and that was also her education. No one would have guessed that her fate would turn out this way. At first, the young Brazilian took a job at a money exchange office called Santur, famous for its suspicious activities. Some time later, she was able to participate in official transactions and negotiations, and soon became the owner of the company. The previous owner washed his hands of the shady transactions he carried out.

Kodama illegally bought and later sold currency (mainly dollars) to businessmen and Brazilian banks in the 70s, 80s and 90s. Although it was illegal by law, morally they turned a blind eye to it. Her “activity” developed to the point that she served clients from China and the US. By the early 90s, she was already a millionaire. She facilitated illegal currency exchange, thereby bypassing official channels of transfer and applicable regulations. It is worth adding that banks and prominent people in the country used her “services”, laundering money and thus avoiding paying taxes. The Kodama case revealed a huge scandal on a Brazilian scale, in which state institutions and their representatives were involved.

“Those were very good times”

In 2000, everything was supposed to change. Nelma Kodama met Alberto Youssef, who soon became her lover. He had experience in money laundering: he had been involved in this activity since he was a teenager. Kodama and Youssef began to cooperate. “One day he said: I’ll come and meet you,” the woman recalled in her book. Youssef played a key role in illegal transactions involving the state-controlled oil company Petrobras. The company’s directors accepted bribes from construction companies in exchange for lucrative contracts, and this exchange was facilitated by Youssef. He also brokered the distribution of bribes from large companies associated with Petrobras, which were given to politicians in exchange for various favors. Nelma Kodama began to help him obtain dollars for the aforementioned transactions.

We lived together for 9 years. Those were very good times.

– she recalled. During this time, Youssef was arrested several times. Because of this, the man finally had to withdraw from the procedure, but he passed the baton to his beloved. From then on, Nelma was involved in illegal business with companies and politicians. In the meantime, their relationship began to deteriorate. Albert Youssef began to come home late, and Nelma was irritated that he still had not divorced his wife. At the same time, the Brazilian police began an investigation into corruption in the federal government. The two lovers almost immediately found themselves in the center of the services’ attention.

It started with money laundering. A scandal erupted throughout the country

Operation Lava Jato (Car Wash) was the largest corruption investigation in Brazilian history. At first, it was only about money laundering, but over time it revealed a complex web of corruption around Petrobras, construction companies and Brazilian politicians. All of them received bribes in dollars from Nelma, who was replacing Albert Youssef. She was the first to be arrested in Operation Car Wash.

Kodama was sentenced to 18 years in prison. The woman argued that she was “innocent” because she was “just a dollar trader” and, as she claimed, “never spoke to anyone from Petrobras”. She spent 3 years in prison, after which, under a signed agreement in 2016, she was placed under house arrest. Alberto Youssef was also sentenced to prison. Currently, Nelma has no contact with him. She is under electronic surveillance and lives in a spacious, luxurious apartment in Brazil.