Pod Insights Scamfluencers Eike Batista: Brazillionaire Boys Club | 144 About this episode In the early 2000s, Brazilian billionaire Eike Batista was seen as the ultimate mining mogul: he was a speedboat-racing showman and a playboy who liked to show off his wealth. To expand his empire, Eike spun a web of bribes and fraud with high-ranking government officials. So when he was finally brought down, it created one of the biggest corruption scandals Brazil has ever seen.
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Transcript 8,740 words · 10 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Sarah Hagi? Audible subscribers can listen to all our episodes of Scamfluencers ad-free right now. Join Audible today by downloading the Audible app.
0:14 Sarah Hagi? Sachi, sometimes when we're learning about scams, I cannot believe how big the world is. It's like every country has its own way of doing things. You're not really sure what counts as a scam, but it's always juicy.
0:26 Scaachi Koul? I know. I feel like different countries have different ways of scamming. And I feel like we hear from people all over the world about how their country does a scam.
0:36 Sarah Hagi? Yeah, one country I feel always brings a heat when it comes to scams is the beautiful nation of Brazil. And that's not me knocking Brazil. I just think so much stuff happens there in general that we can have our own Brazil spinoff.
0:51 Scaachi Koul? Yeah, there are a lot of Brazilian scammers. There's something really interesting happening in the water there.
0:57 Sarah Hagi? Well, today's scammer was one of the most well-known figures in Brazil. Like many of our faves, he's a nepo baby with daddy issues who wants to solve his emotional life by getting rich. And when he finally gets taken down, it's part of the biggest corruption scandal to ever hit Brazil.
1:17 Sarah Hagi? It's November 2009. Brazilian billionaire Ike Batista is hosting an extravagant dinner at his huge estate located about three hours southwest of Rio de Janeiro. The property has a giant mansion with a large balcony overlooking the ocean, private beach, a tennis court, and a pool. Ike is a fit, good-looking man in his early 50s, the kind of guy whose graying temples only make him more handsome. His party guests tonight include Brazil's most powerful men and one of the world's most famous women, Madonna.
1:50 Scaachi Koul? Party of the century. Anywhere Madonna is, party of the century.
1:53 Sarah Hagi? Yeah, and the queen of pop is in Brazil to raise money for her new charity project. And this dinner is full of potential donors, including the governor of Rio de Janeiro, Sergio Cabral. Sergio's been around for most of Madonna's trip. He even took her on a tour of one of Brazil's underprivileged neighborhoods. These dinner guests have deep pockets, but Madonna's probably focused on the host because Ike is worth $7.5 billion.
2:22 Scaachi Koul? That is an incomprehensible amount of money.
2:25 Sarah Hagi? Yeah, he is truly a real billionaire. And at dinner, Madonna makes her pitch. She's backing a program called Success for Kids, which would bring Kabbalah to low-income children in Brazil. In case you lived under a rock in the early 2000s, Kabbalah is a mystical sect of Judaism, and Madonna may be its most famous follower. She tells partygoers that she's already raised $3 million during this trip to Brazil. And her goal is to raise a total of $10 million by the time she leaves. Immediately, Ike steps up and promises to make up the entire difference, a mind-blowing $7 million. Madonna is moved to tears by this generous donation.
3:09 Scaachi Koul? I know that $7 million is very little to someone worth $7 billion, but this is a colossal waste of money.
3:18 Sarah Hagi? Yes, definitely. But here's the thing. Years go by and Ike's big donation fails to materialize. He ends up giving the charity just half a million dollars, about 15% of what he pledged. Ike likes to make big promises, but that doesn't mean he'll keep them. And while stiffing a world-famous pop star isn't cool, the promises Ike makes to his investors are far more serious. And the payments he makes to government figures to help his business get an edge aren't exactly legal. When the Brazilian public tires of his rich-guy antics, Ike's broken promises will land him smack in the middle of the largest corruption scandal in South American history.
4:03 Speaker 02 With a Spark Cash Plus card from Capital One, you earn unlimited 2% cash back on every purchase. And you get big purchasing power, so your business can spend more and earn more.
4:15 Speaker 03 I'm Lauren Malloy, the host of the podcast My Mom's Murder. For 30 years, I thought my mom died of natural causes. That's what everyone told me. That's what I believed. Until one day, I got a phone call that changed everything. A woman claiming to be my mom's best friend told me my mother was murdered and that no one had ever investigated it. So I did what the detectives wouldn't, pulled the threads, knocked on doors, and confronted the contradictions. And what I found, it's worse than I imagined. Something happened to my mom. Someone killed her. And I won't stop until I find out who.
4:57 Speaker 03 The system may have given up on my mom, but I never will. Listen to My Mom's Murder wherever you get your podcasts. Audible subscribers can binge all 10 episodes early and ad-free right now. Join Audible in the Audible app or by subscribing on Apple Podcasts.
5:19 Sarah Hagi? From Wondery, I'm Sarah Hackney. And I'm Sachi Cole. And this is Scamfluencers.
5:32 Sarah Hagi? Ike Batista is one of the biggest names in Brazilian business. And outside of the boardroom, he's got a flamboyant reputation. He's been described as swashbuckling, flashy, a maverick, and a playboy. But beneath the surface, Ike is running a scam way more complicated than your run-of-the-mill dirty dealing. It's a two-headed serpent of insider trading and bribery, and it's brought him unimaginable profits. That is, until a legal super team known as the Nine Horsemen of the Apocalypse come riding into Rio. This is Ike Batista, Brazil's bribery baron.
6:14 Sarah Hagi? From the day he's born in 1956, Ike Batista seems destined to be stuck in his father's shadow. His father, Eliezer Batista, is a rising star in the mining industry. In the 60s, Eliezer serves as the Brazilian Minister of Mines and Energy, and then he becomes a president of the state's mining operation. But in 1964, when Ike is around seven years old, the Brazilian military overthrows the government in a coup d'etat. Anti-communism is on the rise, and Eliezer is targeted because he speaks Russian. And when Ike is a young teen, the Batista family leaves Brazil for Europe, a period Ike later calls a "friendly exile." It's a turbulent time for Ike's family,
6:58 Sarah Hagi? and his parents aren't exactly the lovey-dovey types. Ike and his father don't have a close relationship, and Ike's mother makes it clear that she expects Ike and his siblings to be just as successful as their father, if not more so. About a decade later, when Ike is 18 years old, the political situation in Brazil calms down enough for his parents to return. But Ike stays in Germany to attend college. His parents give him an allowance, but he wants more. So he becomes a door-to-door insurance salesman to make extra cash. He's a natural, sipping tea with stay-at-home moms and tapping into their anxieties to make more sales. Through this job, Ike learns two skills that will carry him throughout his career:
7:42 Sarah Hagi? how to be charming and how to deal with rejection. In 1978, when Ike is in his early 20s, he stumbles on a news article about a gold rush in Brazil. He sees this as his opportunity to jump into the family business, so he drops out of college and returns to Brazil. And his dad is pissed. When Ike tells him that he quits school, Eliezer pounds his fists on the table, and he says he deserves a "idiot's diploma."
8:10 Scaachi Koul? Excellent insult. Nobody can be mean to you like an ethnic father.
8:17 Sarah Hagi? Truly.
8:20 Sarah Hagi? I mean, I'm surprised my dad didn't say that to me.
8:23 Scaachi Koul? I feel like I've heard that one.
8:24 Sarah Hagi? Well, Ike is still determined to make his mark. He borrows $500,000 from wealthy jewelers to start a gold reselling business. He actually makes some money at first, but ends up losing out when his business partners screw him over. Still, Ike isn't deterred. He puts his salesman skills to work and somehow convinces the same jewelers to front him another half million dollars. Of course, it doesn't hurt that his dad's a legend in the Brazilian mining world. Ike's nepo baby background has served him well, but if he wants to stand on his own and make a name for himself, he'll have to travel to where the mining deals really go down: the heart of the Amazon jungle.
9:13 Sarah Hagi? A few months later, Ike wipes the sweat off his brow as he steps off a tiny airplane into the Amazon jungle. The air is humid and the hum of insects is deafening. Ike is 23 years old now and determined to make his gold trading company a success. But he knows he'll have to hustle. He's just landed in a small boomtown deep in the Amazon where gold is delivered from nearby mines. Ike acts as a middleman between peasant miners and wealthy buyers in Rio and Sao Paulo. Ike loves his job. He fancies himself a real Indiana Jones type. His sleeves are rolled up, the top few buttons of his shirt are undone, and he wears a silver amulet around his neck.
9:53 Scaachi Koul? I hate this.
9:58 Scaachi Koul? I hate, I hate hearing about it and I hate visualizing it.
10:04 Sarah Hagi? You know, people don't really wear amulets anymore either.
10:07 Scaachi Koul? Yeah, you're right. There's a real dearth of amulet culture happening.
10:11 Sarah Hagi? And obviously Ike isn't the most honest broker. He takes advantage of the miners by using old newspapers to show them the price of gold, knowing that the price has gone up since the paper came out. So he buys low from the miners and then sells high, pocketing the profits. He also gives loans to some of the miners and has a low tolerance for those who don't pay him back on time. One day at the mines, Ike confronts a worker who owes him money and calls him a son of a bitch. Then, as Ike walks away, the miner shoots him in the back. This isn't a fatal shot for Ike, but Ike's bodyguard shoots the miner, killing him. Damn. The amulet did nothing. No, the amulet did not protect him. What's the point?
10:56 Sarah Hagi? I don't know. I guess it's just a necklace. Oh, God. And by 1980, just a year and a half after he dropped out of school, Ike's doing well, very well. He's already made $6 million. He buys a black Porsche in cash and uses the rest of the profits to invest in a mine of his own. He has a unique vision for this mine. Instead of using people to separate the gold from the gravel, he buys a machine to do it more efficiently. But Ike keeps running into problems. The fancy machine has to be delivered in pieces and reassembled on-site, which is tedious and labor-intensive. He also underestimates the jungle's brutal climate, and malaria quickly becomes a problem,
11:39 Sarah Hagi? forcing him to replace old teams of workers as he gets sick. But he powers through. Here he is, talking about that period years later with Charlie Rose.
11:49 Speaker 04 But ultimately, the mine was so rich, and I still like to remember, it was idiot-proof because it survived all my mistakes. And I ended up, when it started to run, I ended up making $1 million a month.
12:05 Sarah Hagi? Ike loves telling stories of overcoming struggle. In his mind, it adds to his adventurer's mystique. And that's a big part of his sales strategy. People are drawn to his charismatic persona, and by playing this up, Ike can convince almost anyone to invest in his projects. When he's not on a dangerous adventure in the jungle, Ike conquers another kind of wilderness: PowerPoint. Ike becomes known for using elaborate slideshows to market his company as a new version of the state-run mining company his dad ran. And he's determined to outpace it fast.
12:43 Sarah Hagi? Ike's already a success in the mining world, but he'll need to make a big splash if he wants to get out from under his father's shadow. And he's about to meet the person who will not only scale up his profile, but also his notoriety.
13:03 Sarah Hagi? It's 1990, about a decade since Ike struck out on his own in the Amazon, and Luma de Oliveira is standing at the finish line of a speedboat race. Luma is a stunning beauty with a big smile and long, full dark curls. And she isn't just some podium princess. Luma's a celebrity in her own right. A few years earlier, when she was 22, she became famous at Brazil's Carnival by stealing the show with her dance moves and topless outfit. When she was on the cover of Playboy shortly after, the magazines sold out across the country. Today, she's handing a comically large check to the speedboat race winner, Ike Batista. By this point, Ike has become the chairman
13:47 Sarah Hagi? of a Canadian gold mining company. And he's gotten really good at his rich guy hobby, speedboat racing. He's wealthy and he's a winner. Luma is definitely interested. Ike and Luma quickly fall in love. There's just one problem. Ike is newly married. But it's nothing a quick annulment can't solve. Four months later, Ike and Luma get married with their first son, Thor, already on the way. This couple is seriously over the top. They both love attention, so naturally, they become tabloid staples. One cover headline reads, "Luma de Oliveira and Ike Batista: A Love That Resists Playboy." I mean, couples that want this much attention
14:32 Sarah Hagi? are just baseline weird. And oh, so predictably, before long, Ike starts revealing that he isn't the perfect husband Luma once imagined him to be. He starts trying to assert control in weird, manipulative ways. He gives her a diamond ring to persuade her to turn down a nude photo shoot. And he brings home milkshakes and chocolates to throw her off her diet. After a while, Luma's eyes start to wander in the direction of a young man she meets at a photo shoot for a fireman calendar. And after more than a dozen years of marriage and two kids, Ike and Luma divorce in 2004, but they manage to stay friends. He even buys her a mansion right next door to his so their sons can stay close to both of them.
15:16 Sarah Hagi? Ike's work has given him access to exciting hobbies, big homes, and beautiful women. But he wants to have a hand in all areas of Brazilian business. And he sees major potential and big bucks in one of Brazil's other natural resources: oil.
15:36 Sarah Hagi? In the early 2000s, Ike makes some big business moves, and they transform him from Playboy hotshot to one of the richest men in the world. Ike expands his empire into new industries: info tech, energy, shipbuilding, entertainment, and real estate. And each of the new companies' names include the letter "X." Ike says it stands for multiplication of wealth. Seems like that letter has a strange allure for rich entrepreneurs.
16:04 Scaachi Koul? It's just such a sexy letter. They can't, it's, you know, they all, they all want to be the mysterious X.
16:11 Sarah Hagi? Well, the company that makes the biggest impact in Ike's portfolio is OGX, his oil and gas operation. At the time, the largest player in Brazil's oil business is the government-run company Petrobras. But when Ike launches OGX in 2007, it's an exciting alternative. He even poaches dozens of their engineers. And OGX's launch couldn't come at a better time. Oil is reaching a record-breaking $145 a barrel. And just a few months later, Petrobras sells blocks of their offshore reserves, and OGX wins some of them by bidding big, in some cases, more than 10 times the next highest offer. But Ike is confident. He tells potential investors
16:56 Sarah Hagi? that OGX can expect to get 5 billion barrels from these reserves, even though he hasn't actually confirmed this number yet. Here he is talking about Brazil's oil potential a few years later at a conference hosted by Google.
17:10 Speaker 04 Oil assets, there is a, there is a Brazil that is happening offshore, which is invisible and underwater and under the seabed. There is a trillion-dollar story.
17:21 Scaachi Koul? That sounds evil. I don't think anything should have a trillion dollars related to it.
17:26 Sarah Hagi? It also is a pretty crazy thing to say when you truly have no idea if that's true.
17:32 Scaachi Koul? No, no plan.
17:34 Sarah Hagi? And Ike's famous PowerPoint presentations are filled with these unconfirmed statistics to get investors excited. And all his big talk plants a major seed of FOMO. So when OGX is listed on the stock exchange in June 2008, the company raises more than $4 billion in only a few days, a record high in Brazil. One trader says that no one besides Bill Gates has made as much money off PowerPoint. Ike's reputation as a shrewd businessman and the promise of massive earnings have won over investors. Now, he has to deliver. So he sets out to make powerful friends who are willing to grease the wheels for his oil company, but for a high price.
18:24 Speaker 05 Journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia spent her life exposing powerful people. Then, in 2017, she was killed in a car bombing. I'm Stephen Gray, and for the past nine years, I've been trying to find out who wanted her dead. That search took me to Malta through secret companies, organized crime, and eventually to one of the island's richest and most powerful men. Now, after years of waiting, this trial has finally happened. But when the verdict came in, the case took a turn that almost no one had expected. In a brand-new update to the multi-award-winning podcast Who Killed Daphne?, I'm returning to Malta to find out how we got there and where the search for the truth goes next. Listen to the new episode
19:06 Speaker 05 of Who Killed Daphne? wherever you get your podcasts, and you can hear the full six-part investigation from the beginning, ad-free with Audible. Join Audible today by downloading the Audible app and by subscribing on Apple Podcasts.
19:23 Speaker 02 A trucker merges onto the I-10 in New Orleans. He checks his mirrors. The lane is clear. And then boom, impact. A pickup truck, seemingly out of nowhere, scrapes down the side of his 18-wheeler, multiple passengers inside. One man flees the scene. And the driver of the pickup? He doesn't seem all that upset. It didn't feel like a regular accident, because it wasn't. Across the city, truckers are getting sideswiped, all on the same stretch of the same freeway. And behind many of the cases is one person, a Hollywood stunt woman turned personal injury lawyer named Vanessa Moda. This podcast is a story about fake accidents that lead to real consequences and a scheme that ends in betrayal and murder.
20:08 Speaker 02 Listen to "Over My Dead Body: Operation Sideswipe" wherever you get your podcasts. Audible subscribers can binge all episodes early and ad-free right now. Join Audible in the Audible app or by subscribing on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
20:34 Sarah Hagi? Around 2010, Bloomberg reporter Alex Quadros arrives at a 37,000-square-foot mansion located near the famous Chrysler Redeemer statue in Rio. Alex is a young journalist with dark floppy hair and thick-framed glasses. He and a group of other reporters have been invited here by Ike, who owns the house and the 15 acres it sits on. Alex has been following the rise of Ike and other super-rich Brazilian tycoons since moving to Brazil earlier this year. So he's not totally surprised when he notices that one wall in the living room is actually a large glass door, which is large enough for Ike to drive a car through. On the day Alex visits, the car parked in the living room
21:18 Sarah Hagi? is a $1.3 million silver Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren. Sachi, take a look at this photo. This is a photo of a car inside of a living room. It looks dumb. As you know, I don't understand cars. This could be any car to me.
21:35 Scaachi Koul? It could be a Toyota.
21:36 Sarah Hagi? OK, well, that's just wrong. I mean, it looks expensive.
21:40 Scaachi Koul? Well, it looks expensive because it's in a house.
21:43 Sarah Hagi? No, it doesn't. Stop pretending you don't have eyes.
21:45 Scaachi Koul? I just don't get it.
21:47 Sarah Hagi? Anyway, it's just one car from Ike's collection, which also includes many more BMWs and an armored Toyota pickup, which you know nothing about. He has a 17-person staff that attends to whatever he wants. And Ike has even gone on TV to boast about his favorite purchase: luxurious hair transplants. The service costs between $3,500 and $35,000, depending on how much real estate you need to cover.
22:15 Scaachi Koul? Honestly, that's probably the best use of his money so far.
22:18 Sarah Hagi? Go get your hair. Why not?
22:19 Scaachi Koul? Why not?
22:20 Sarah Hagi? Yeah. Alex recognizes that Ike is cultivating a real persona. He's shaping himself into a Brazilian Steve Jobs. And so far, it's working. Brazilians even start referring to him by first name only: just Ike. In 2010, Ike joins Twitter and quickly picks up millions of followers. Ike's already achieved his goal of becoming more successful than his father. So he decides to set an even loftier goal: to become the richest man in the world. And he wants to get there within five years. But he'll have to dethrone the current title holder, Carlos Slim, from Mexico. Ike talked about this race to the top with fellow billionaire, former king of junk bonds,
23:03 Sarah Hagi? and, feature subject of a Scamfluencers episode, Mike Milken, at an event for Milken's American think tank.
23:10 Speaker 04 Once you're a racer, or you're once you go into competing, you probably never get it out of your blood, right? So I have to compete with Mr. Slim. You know, I'm... I don't know if I'm gonna pass him on the right or the left side, but I'm gonna pass him.
23:28 Scaachi Koul? I feel like having a stated goal of wanting to be the richest man in the world is like saying, "I want to cause harm so that I can have the thing that I want."
23:39 Sarah Hagi? It's just a stupid goal to have, like-
23:41 Scaachi Koul? Boring.
23:42 Sarah Hagi? Okay, richest man in the world, congrats, everyone hates you.
23:47 Sarah Hagi? Ike isn't gonna become the world's richest man by sitting on his laurels. He has to find ways to keep expanding his empire. Luckily, it's a good time for big ideas in Brazil. The economy is booming, it's as strong as it's been in 25 years. But Brazil's economy has a major bottleneck: an outdated shipping infrastructure. So Ike has been building an enormous container terminal in a port town about 200 miles from Rio. It can accommodate the largest boats in the world and would take the pressure off some of Brazil's smaller ports. Ike started building this port three years ago, but it's getting expensive. Luckily, Ike has tons of allies in the government, especially his close friend, Sergio Cabral,
24:32 Sarah Hagi? the governor of Rio de Janeiro. Sergio's a jolly-looking guy with a warm smile. At this point, he's a trusted figure in Brazil. In his tenure as governor, he's improved Rio's transit system and marched in the pride parade. I need you to look at this photo of Ike and Sergio palling around.
24:50 Scaachi Koul? This is two men with the whitest, fakest teeth I've ever seen in my life, and it looks like Ike is gonna do a little boop on his friend's nose.
25:00 Sarah Hagi? They look like they're smiling at each other because they see each other as like wads of cash, you know?
25:06 Scaachi Koul? Yeah.
25:09 Scaachi Koul? They look like they're sharing an awful secret that I don't want to hear about.
25:12 Sarah Hagi? And Ike and Sergio's friendship is very convenient for both of them. Ike gives Sergio millions in cash and shares and access to his private jet. In exchange, Sergio helps Ike's port project by giving him tens of millions of dollars in tax credits and fast-tracks permits. In Brazil, corruption like this is almost normal, but the odds that you'll go to jail for it are basically zero. One expert estimates that around this time, about 3% to 5% of Brazil's GDP is lost to corruption. And a lot of this has to do with the country's out-of-control financial inequality. Ike and his fellow Brazilianers are used to getting special treatment,
25:53 Sarah Hagi? and they use these perks to maintain their power and increase their wealth. Right now, Ike's the biggest Brazilianer of all. In March 2012, he hits a major milestone. His net worth reaches $34.5 billion, making him the richest person in Brazil and the seventh richest person in the world. But the tide is about to turn against the brazenly wealthy, and Ike will find himself at the center of the backlash.
26:24 Sarah Hagi? The same month he's declared one of the wealthiest people in the world, Ike and his family are thrust back into the headlines, and not in a good way. On the night of March 17, 2012, Ike's phone rings. His 20-year-old son, Thor, had been driving home from a steakhouse in his dad's silver McLaren. A man named Vonderson Pereira dos Santos, who lived in a shack along the highway, was riding his bike on the shoulder of the road, and Thor hit Vonderson, killing him instantly. It's a tragedy, and for Ike, a huge scandal. Over the years, public opinion has started to turn against Ike. He promised a "Brazil of the future," but things haven't gotten better for regular Brazilians.
27:08 Sarah Hagi? And now, with Ike's son responsible for the death of a low-income citizen, the gap between the Batistas and the average Brazilian has never seemed more enormous. The headlines read "Tycoon's Son Battles Slum Widow" and "Thor at the Wheel: Constant Danger."
27:26 Scaachi Koul? Yeah, this is like one of those stories that's made for a tabloid that would absolutely get everybody to hate a rich family. It's like designed for maximum loathing.
27:38 Sarah Hagi? Yeah, it's indefensible, even if you think being rich is cool.
27:42 Scaachi Koul? Yeah, it's super evil.
27:44 Sarah Hagi? Yeah. And soon, Ike gets more bad news. He'd recently hired an independent team to analyze his OGX reserves to finally learn how much oil is really there. And their final report is shocking. Only a few hundred million barrels can be extracted. That's a fraction of the 11 billion barrels Ike had promised investors just a few months ago. It looks like his company is wildly overvalued.
28:12 Sarah Hagi? So instead of sharing this updated, much less sunny information like he's required to do, Ike just sits on it. Around this time, Ike sees another big opportunity to cash in: the upcoming World Cup in Brazil. He pitches a big business proposition to his pal, Governor Sergio. The government should lease out the Maracanã, one of the country's biggest stadiums, to private companies. Sergio hires one of Ike's companies to figure out the terms of a potential contract. And Ike's company comes back with a proposal: a lease period that would cover the upcoming World Cup and Summer Olympics in Brazil.
28:53 Sarah Hagi? The winning bidder will have to pay $2 million in rent to the government every year and invest $300 million into the neighborhood around the arena, but they will make an estimated $700 million in profits by hosting games and events at the stadium. Once the idea gets approved, major entertainment and construction companies bid on the rights to lease the stadium. And, surprise, a group of companies, including Ike's, wins the bid.
29:20 Scaachi Koul? What a surprise! How could this be? It's just luck, I'm sure.
29:25 Sarah Hagi? Yeah, and the Brazilian people are outraged at this deal. They see it as a privatization of a public monument, so hundreds of people protest outside the stadium, wearing masks of Ike's and Sergio's faces, chanting, "Ike, you thief, leave the Maracano for the people." And just a couple of months later, the unrest boils over. When bus fares are hiked, more than 100,000 people take to the streets in one of the largest protest movements in the country's history. Around the same time, Ike's son Thor is convicted of manslaughter for killing Vonderson, but he's given a relatively light sentence. He quickly becomes a symbol of inequality in the eyes of the protesters.
30:09 Sarah Hagi? In mid-2013, the Brazilian stock market is extra shaky. Ike turns to Twitter to boost confidence in the market, especially in OGX, his oil company. He says he'll present a business plan soon. So even as he's pumping up OGX publicly, Ike quietly sells about $60 million in shares, about 2% of the company. Ike also starts selling off some of his possessions: his $26 million private jet, his marina, and a 177-foot party boat named Pink Fleet. The Financial Times calls it "a yard sale billionaire-style."
30:49 Scaachi Koul? I would say that it is suspicious to be a billionaire and suddenly be trying to sell everything. That would be cause for concern.
30:58 Sarah Hagi? Yeah, I mean, this should be setting off big alarm bells, and things just keep getting worse for Ike. In October 2013, OGX files for bankruptcy. He's produced only a fraction of what he promised investors in those flashy PowerPoints, and he can't afford to pay back his creditors. The public has had enough. The judicial system and government agencies feel the pressure from the protesters to punish corruption. And a simple gas station in Brasilia will become ground zero for taking it all down, Ike included.
31:39 Sarah Hagi? In 2014, federal prosecutor Delton de Lingle is sitting in his office in Curitiba, a city in southeast Brazil. Delton is in his early 30s, clean-cut with dark-framed glasses. He went to Harvard Law School and came back to Brazil to work as a prosecutor for the government. He's a devout Christian and an optimist who dreams of a better, less-corrupt Brazil. Here he is, talking about his mission years later during a keynote speech at Acton University in Michigan.
32:08 Speaker 06 Fighting against corruption is a matter of compassion, of loving our neighbors, and of implementing human rights.
32:17 Speaker 06 That is what drives us.
32:20 Sarah Hagi? Dalton takes notice of a police investigation in Brazil's capital city, Brasilia. They're tracking a black market banker and known money launderer named Alberto Youssef. He's been arrested before, once after a high-speed car chase, which started when smuggled VHS players fell off the back of his truck. This time, the police had been surveying a gas station they suspected was being used to launder money. The dirty money would come in, get recorded as earnings from the gas station, and then go back out into the world, making it much harder to track. During the surveillance, the police discovered that Alberto is involved in the operation. And in March 2014, the police arrest him. They offer him a plea deal to get him to talk, but he says he can't.
33:05 Sarah Hagi? He tells his lawyer, "If I speak, the republic is going to fail."
33:11 Scaachi Koul? If I were to hear this, I would be like, this is either someone who is paranoid and has a completely grandiose sense of what's going on here, or someone who means it.
33:25 Sarah Hagi? Yeah, it would get me interested regardless. And Alberto finally cracks and starts writing down the names of his co-criminals. And it quickly becomes clear that he was not kidding. Alberto admits to laundering money for executives at Petrobras, the government-owned oil company and ICA's biggest oil industry rival. Dalton can tell that this local corruption case could lead to something much bigger. So he starts a federal investigation called Operation Car Wash. Dalton needs to assemble a team of experts to crack this case wide open. So he gathers the country's best prosecutors. Like any good team in a heist movie, each member has a specialty,
34:08 Sarah Hagi? like money laundering or wire fraud. And as the case moves forward, the press gives the group a nickname: The Nine Horsemen of the Apocalypse.
34:18 Scaachi Koul? I find this nickname dorky.
34:21 Scaachi Koul? But it is interesting that the press and the public look at them like this because they are so hopeful that there's actually going to be some justice, which is clearly in short supply.
34:34 Sarah Hagi? Yeah, I mean, it's a very intense name, but I think people are kind of seeing it as a moment of reckoning for this type of financial corruption. And by March 2014, the Horsemen have enough evidence to arrest Paulo Costa, a former Petrobras executive. And when Paulo finally sits across from six prosecutors in a cramped office, he admits he'd been taking bribes from the country's biggest construction firm for years. In return, he awarded these firms seriously inflated contracts, adding up to hundreds of millions of dollars. And countless Brazilian politicians were also cut in. These bribery arrangements aren't much different than what Sergio and Ike have had with each other for the past few years.
35:17 Sarah Hagi? This confession cracks the case wide open. Dalton sends out a web of police officers to raid the homes of the allegedly corrupt officials. More and more defendants choose to cooperate, turning in evidence and information about new crimes. The police sees countless sports cars and safes filled with money and jewelry. The haul includes so many valuable paintings that the police allow a museum to exhibit some of them, including a Salvador Dali. Operation Car Wash is on track to become the biggest house cleaning in Brazilian government history, and the country's mega businessmen are caught up in the sweep, too.
35:55 Sarah Hagi? But Ike will have to face a higher court first: his investors. While this national corruption scandal is erupting around him, Ike has more immediate legal troubles to deal with. In September 2014, a few months after the Horsemen's raid, government prosecutors indict him for financial crimes. Suspicious investors urged the prosecutors to look into discrepancies between what Ike had been telling them about OGX's golden future and what was actually happening behind the scenes. The charges against Ike include manipulating the market, misleading investors, false representation, conspiracy, and insider trading.
36:39 Sarah Hagi? And if he's found guilty, he'll be one of the first people ever punished for financial crimes in Brazil. Ike's criminal trial starts in November, and right away, it's a media circus. Every time he makes a weird face or drinks a cup of coffee, someone takes his picture. And this happens more than you'd expect in a courtroom because Brazilian courthouses have a waiter who brings around coffee on a silver tray.
37:05 Scaachi Koul? Oh my god, we have to go to Brazil.
37:07 Sarah Hagi? Sounds kind of nice.
37:08 Scaachi Koul? Yeah.
37:10 Sarah Hagi? Well, the prosecutors have a solid case against Ike, thanks to three witnesses: a market regulator, a former OGX engineer, and one of Ike's shareholders. The case is pretty straightforward. The prosecutors believe that Ike exaggerated the company's prospects to manipulate the forecasted stock price. They accuse him of only sharing positive information and hiding anything that could hurt the share price. The prosecutors also believe that Ike had known for years that his oil reserves weren't very profitable, but kept this information to himself. Plus, OGX had found so-called "death gas" at its sites early on, an industry term for oil that's very expensive to extract without killing the crew.
37:54 Sarah Hagi? Ike didn't report that hang-up to investors either.
37:57 Scaachi Koul? I guess it would have been unpopular to write a memo about the death gas.
38:03 Sarah Hagi? Yeah, I feel like it wouldn't really look good in a PowerPoint, you know?
38:07 Scaachi Koul? Tough to explain in a deck.
38:09 Sarah Hagi? So, things are looking bad for Ike. And it only gets worse when his Twitter account becomes fair game in the courtroom. Prosecutors show that Ike told his followers that the company was going to make a comeback while he was dumping his own stock. Ike defends himself, saying he honestly still believed in the company when he hit send. But the trial's judge, Judge Souza, openly disdains Ike, even complaining to reporters that he's a megalomaniac. To hit him where it hurts, Judge Souza orders officials to confiscate Ike's piano, 16 watches, and a Fabergé egg that turns out to be fake. Brazil's Sunday news show even runs a special on the operation to collect Ike's valuables.
38:52 Sarah Hagi? Ike's reputation is hurt dramatically by the ongoing trial. And by February of 2015, his net worth sinks to a shocking negative $1 billion.
39:03 Scaachi Koul? You know, there's being broke, there's being in debt, and then there's being in debt for $1 billion. That is an incomprehensible hole.
39:15 Sarah Hagi? Yeah, it does sound a lot worse than having $0, right?
39:21 Scaachi Koul? Zero better than negative billion, yes.
39:23 Sarah Hagi? But then, things take a strange turn. One of Thor's friends lives in the same building as Judge Souza. And one day, he spots Ike's confiscated Porsche Cayenne in the building's garage. Not long after, a Brazilian tabloid publishes a photo of Judge Souza driving the car. Sachi, take a look.
39:42 Scaachi Koul? Sarah, I'm sorry, this is iconic.
39:45 Sarah Hagi? It's so funny.
39:47 Scaachi Koul? Driving, driving his car around.
39:51 Sarah Hagi? Driving his car around out of your own home, where people will see you.
39:55 Scaachi Koul? Clear windows, not even a tinted window. Iconic. I love it.
40:01 Sarah Hagi? Well, when Judge Souza is confronted by a reporter, he says he wanted to protect the Porsche from potential weather damage in the police impound lot. Already, we're in sure jan territory. And it's soon revealed that the judge had taken another one of Ike's cars home and moved Ike's piano into his neighbor's apartment. The last thing a fraud trial needs is a corrupt judge. So in March, Judge Souza is taken off the case, and the trial is put on hold until further notice. Ike may be off the hook for the moment, but Operation Car Wash is getting closer and closer to his doorstep, and his partner in crime is finally about to get nabbed.
40:47 Speaker 07 Hi, I'm Kenyon Barris.
40:49 Speaker 08 And I'm Malcolm Gladwell. We're back for season two of our Audible original podcast, The Unusual Suspects.
40:55 Speaker 07 We'll sit down with extraordinary guests from the worlds of art, film, literature, comedy, and wellness to hear from their unexpected stories of success.
41:02 Speaker 08 And who do we have this season? Well, we'll talk with Grammy-winning artist Anderson Paak, athlete Richard Roll, portrait artist Amy Sherald, Oscar-winning director Ron Howard, legendary writer David Sedaris, and many more. These conversations are more intimate than last season, wouldn't you say?
41:19 Speaker 07 I would. Listen to season one of The Unusual Suspects wherever you get your podcasts and sign up for a free trial Audible to listen to season two in the Audible app or by subscribing to Apple Podcasts.
41:35 Speaker 09 Hey, I'm Cassie DePecce, the host of Against the Odds from Audible Originals. In each episode, we share thrilling true stories of survival, putting you in the shoes of the people who live to tell the tale. In our latest series, we track the story of Hugh Glass, the real-life revenant that inspired the 2015 film starring Leonardo DiCaprio. In 1823, Glass was brutally mauled by a grizzly bear in present-day South Dakota and left for dead. His survival depended on trekking through 350 miles of wilderness alone with grave injuries. But he was driven by his thirst for revenge. Follow Against the Odds wherever you get your podcasts. Audible subscribers can binge all episodes of Against the Odds early and ad-free right now. Join Audible in the Audible app or by subscribing on Apple Podcasts.
42:29 Sarah Hagi? It's November 2016, about a year and a half since Judge Sousa was suspended from Ike's case. Federal police have just arrived at Sergio's beachfront apartment in Rio. They're here to arrest him. As they leave the parking garage with Sergio, photographers and cameramen swarm the black SUV. By this point, he's no longer the governor of Rio. He resigned back in 2014 after the bus fare protests. But the Brazilian people are still pissed. A group trails the car, yelling and calling him a thief. Over the last two years, many of the construction executives that were exposed in Operation Car Wash have taken plea deals. And two of them shared some incriminating information about Sergio. They say the former governor got kickbacks
43:14 Sarah Hagi? each time he awarded them contracts. Sergio is accused of siphoning more than $60 million from huge construction projects and accepting bribes for government contracts. These projects include a major highway job just outside of Rio and the refurbishment of the Maracanau Stadium, which Ike had been leasing. Prosecutors say the government insisted on a 5% payoff per project, including some projects that were created to improve life in Rio's slums. Sergio made a ton of money off this scheme. One construction company paid him $100,000 per month for over a year. A prosecutor calls it "the cartelization of government resources."
43:58 Sarah Hagi? Sergio used the bribes to buy jewelry and $400 worth of hot dogs for his son's birthday party.
44:06 Scaachi Koul? Has anything been more me? Like, just a bunch of hot dogs and jewelry?
44:12 Sarah Hagi? No, I think that's basically like what I would do too, you know?
44:16 Scaachi Koul? Oh, is this just what women want?
44:18 Sarah Hagi? Truly.
44:21 Sarah Hagi? And when Sergio arrives at Bangu Prison the night of his arrest, a couple of dozen people are waiting outside, celebrating his takedown. The whole scene is broadcast live on TV. In Sergio's mugshot, he wears a bright green shirt and looks tired, with thin gray hair and stubble on his chin. Even with all the evidence against him, Sergio insists he's innocent. Now, he must wait while the slow Brazilian judicial system cranks on. In a real "woe is me" move, he spends his time in Jil reading a biography of Nelson Mandela. Meanwhile, Sergio's partner in crime, Ike, has been toying with new business ideas while his insider trading trial is on hold.
45:04 Sarah Hagi? Like a new brand of toothpaste and a new version of Viagra. But new ideas aren't going to get Ike out of old problems. And after Sergio's arrest, Ike can feel the feds breathing down his neck. On January 24, 2017, Ike flies to New York. And when police go to arrest him two days later at his home in Brazil, they find the house empty. He is now an international fugitive on Interpol's wanted list.
45:39 Sarah Hagi? Less than a week after he left Brazil, Ike is on his way back home to face the music. He claims he was never on the run. He was just traveling for some innocent business. And now, he's returning to face his charges. While waiting for his flight, he gives a brief interview to a group of journalists and says that the investigation into Petrobras is a good thing for Brazil and that anyone who committed a crime needs to pay. On the flight home, he takes photos with fellow passengers. He doesn't eat anything the entire trip. He just drinks two glasses of milk.
46:14 Scaachi Koul? That might be the worst thing he's ever done.
46:16 Sarah Hagi? It's a weird choice. I didn't know they had milk on planes like that. Have you ever seen anyone do it?
46:21 Scaachi Koul? I haven't seen an adult drink two glasses of milk ever. Gross.
46:26 Sarah Hagi? And when Ike lands, he's immediately put into a cop car and followed from above by a news helicopter. He's being taken to Ari Franco, one of the country's worst prisons. It houses 2,000 prisoners, more than double its capacity. But Ike isn't there long. He's then moved to Bangu Prison, where his old pal Sergio is being held. Bangu is more comfortable, with less gang control and a smaller population, but it is still prison. On his first day, they give Ike a jail uniform, jeans and a white t-shirt. And by this point, his hair has been shaved off. A big L for his expensive hair plugs.
47:07 Scaachi Koul? Oh, he looks bad. What a fall from grace.
47:11 Sarah Hagi? There's also something really strange about prisons in Brazil. The inmates are separated into two groups: those who graduated college and those who didn't. Inmates with a university education get private cells away from the general population until the end of their trial, and those without don't.
47:30 Scaachi Koul? Oh, that is deranged. That is some Hunger Games shit. That's crazy. What are you trying to create? What is the purpose?
47:40 Sarah Hagi? Well, all I know is that I'm sharing a cell.
47:44 Scaachi Koul? Yeah, I'm not.
47:45 Sarah Hagi? Damn it.
47:48 Sarah Hagi? And you know who else is sharing a cell? Ike. Because he dropped out of college in Germany, Ike isn't granted any special treatment. According to Ike, his cell is only 12 square meters, and he shares it with two other people. One of the inmates in his wing allegedly murdered 200 people. And Ike only gets one hour of sunlight on weekdays, and none on the weekend. A few weeks after his arrest, Ike learns he's been charged with giving Sergio $6.5 million in bribes. This is a whole separate set of charges from his insider trading trial, which is still on hold after the judge went on a joyride in Ike's car. The bribes between Ike and Sergio are easily traced to a few projects, including
48:33 Sarah Hagi? the leasing of Maracana Stadium and the construction of Ike's $4 billion port. A couple of months later, Ike is released from prison, but he's under house arrest until his trial begins. He's banned from running his businesses and forced to give up his passport. More than a year later, in July 2018, Ike is convicted of bribery and sentenced to 30 years in prison. His love of the spotlight plays a big role in the length of his sentence. The judge believes that Ike's public profile made his crimes much more destructive. He'd ruined the reputation of not only Brazilian businessmen, but also the entire country, which was finally being seen as a good place to invest.
49:17 Sarah Hagi? The judge wants to make an example of him. Ike's allowed to stay under house arrest while the conviction goes through the appeals process, which could take a long time. And in the months that follow, Ike becomes pretty active on YouTube. And get this, he's sharing financial advice and giving his takes on the day's business news. In September 2019, Ike's other trial for money laundering and insider trading is finally picked back up. Prosecutors said they found $203 million in new illicit transactions between 2010 and 2013, and he's sentenced to serve an additional eight years. Ike's roller coaster ride has reached some of the highest highs.
50:01 Sarah Hagi? And now, he's at the lowest low. He's past worrying about saving his reputation. Now, he's worried about regaining his freedom.
50:13 Sarah Hagi? Operation Car Wash ended up becoming the biggest scandal in Brazilian history. Almost one-third of Brazil's sitting congresspeople were investigated. It cost the country billions of dollars and stalled public projects, putting tens of thousands of people out of work. The average Brazilian felt due. The promise of economic stability and the optimism that came with it were all based on a lie. While Operation Car Wash cleaned out a lot of corruption within the Brazilian government, it also paved the way for the extreme right to fill the void. The nationalist presidential candidate, Jair Bolsonaro, came to power in 2019 on an anti-corruption platform.
50:58 Sarah Hagi? That's so depressing. That's unspeakably depressing, actually.
51:03 Sarah Hagi? Yeah. And in 2020, Ike negotiated a plea deal in his car wash-related case. He agreed to confess to his money laundering and corruption crimes, name his accomplices, pay almost $150 million in fines, and serve four years in prison. And in January 2024, OSX, Ike's only remaining publicly traded company, filed for bankruptcy. But don't worry, Ike hasn't lost his love of attention. He regularly makes media appearances where he's called Operation Car Wash, quote, "medieval" and "like the Inquisition." He still says he believes his charges will be overturned.
51:45 Sarah Hagi? Meanwhile, Ike's son Thor is trying his hand at business. He told GQ Brazil that he had invented an energy drink that intensifies your orgasms. He lovingly credits Ike for inspiring him to become an entrepreneur. Let's just hope he's learned from his father's mistakes.
52:04 Sarah Hagi? Sachi, you know, it's really crazy what guys will do to stick it to their dad, you know?
52:13 Scaachi Koul? This is a story with three generations of guys who are going to torture all of us because no kiss from daddy.
52:20 Sarah Hagi? Yeah, you know, it's also really crazy because, again, with many scammers, he could have just been normal, rich, quiet guy who's doing a little bit of illegal activity and, you know, not being a part of one of the biggest corruption scandals in your country's history.
52:39 Scaachi Koul? If he was content with just $1 billion, he could have gotten away with it for his entire life. But he insisted on having the most billions of anyone to ever have a billion.
52:52 Sarah Hagi? You know what it is? I don't know why someone wants...
52:57 Scaachi Koul? To be known while also being rich. Like, you're not gonna be the rich guy everyone likes forever. Like, show me that guy that never falls from grace, that everyone's kind of like happy with. And they're like, "Yeah, I'm so glad you're rich forever. No one hates you." I mean, I think a lot of the men in this story want to be viewed as problem solvers, and problem solvers who then become very wealthy off of it, because, you know, wealth is power. But they actually didn't have any solutions. They didn't have any plan. All of what they were saying was bullshit. Yeah. Did you learn anything new about how to scam from our friends from Brazil?
53:39 Scaachi Koul? Yeah, you know, it's one of those stories where you're like, "The stock market isn't real." I mean, it's just one of those... You're just kind of like, "None of this was real." This is all fake money moved around with fake promises. The lesson is, it's all fake. You may as well steal it. Yeah, I think that's exactly it. I feel like Thor is well on his way to his own Scamfluencers episode. Apparently, he has figured out a drink that's going to make all of us come. Ew, shut up.
54:15 Scaachi Koul? I hate you so much. I can't think of a better thing for the son of a megalomaniac billionaire, who is later dethroned, to sell than a drink that makes people come. That's like the best possible thing he could do. Anything else would be demonstrably more evil. This is a gas station product. This is what you see behind the gas station guy. Like, that's not real. It's not a real thing. It's the guy at the bodega who's like, "Do you want your dick to get bigger? Drink this spider venom." Like, you can't make that chic. I'm sorry. If Gwyneth Paltrow sold it, I bet a bunch of women in Calabasas would buy it. Yeah.
55:00 Scaachi Koul? Follow Scamfluencers on the Audible app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to all episodes of Scamfluencers ad-free by joining Audible.
55:13 Sarah Hagi? This is Ike Batista, Brazil's bribery baron. I'm Sarah Haggy.
55:18 Scaachi Koul? And I'm Sachi Cole. If you have a tip for us on a story that you think we should cover, please email us at [email protected] . We use many sources in our research. A few that were particularly helpful were "Brazillionaire: Wealth, Power, Decadence, and Hope in an American Country" by Alex Quadros, "How Brazil's Nine Horsemen Cracked a Bribery Scandal" by Will Connors at The Wall Street Journal, and "A Brazilian Magnet Points to Himself for Inspiration" by Alexei Barionuevo in The New York Times.
55:46 Sarah Hagi? Jessica Ford wrote this episode. Additional writing by us, Sachi Cole and Sarah Haggy. Olivia Bryle and Eric Thurm are our story editors. Fact checking by Lexi Piri. Sound design by Sam Ada. Additional audio assistance provided by Augustine Lim. Our music supervisor is Scott Velasquez for Free Sound Sync. Our managing producer is Desi Blaylock. Our senior managing producer is Callum Pluse. Janine Cornolo and Stephanie Jens are our development producers. Our associate producer is Charlotte Miller. Our producer is Julie McGruder. Our senior producers are Sarah Enney and Ginny Bloom. Our executive producers are Jenny Lauer-Beckman, Marshall Louis, and Erin O'Flaherty for Wondery.
56:44 Speaker 07 Hi, I'm Kenya Barris.
56:46 Speaker 08 And I'm Malcolm Gladwell. We're back for season two of our Audible original podcast, The Unusual Suspects.
56:51 Speaker 07 We're bringing you fresh, new conversations from guests like Anderson Paak, David Zedares, Ryan Howard, Rich Roll, Amy Sheldon, and many more.
56:58 Speaker 08 Sign up for a free trial to Audible to listen to season two in the Audible app or by subscribing on Apple Podcasts.
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