Court documents:
- Mario Ildeu de Miranda v Serious Fraud Office (Crown Court judgment on the Mutual Legal Assistance evidence)
Mario Ildeu de Miranda, a former oil executive, faces an account forfeiture order worth nearly $8m brought by the Serious Fraud Office following a nationwide investigation into corruption in Brazil focusing on Petrobas, the state oil company.
Operation Car Wash
Miranda was investigated in Brazil as part of ‘Operation Car Wash’ (or ‘Lava Jato) for allegedly receiving payments worth over $24m from the Odebrecht Group, the region’s largest construction group, and passing on over $11m to Petrobras employees as part of a corrupt contract. The former oil executive worked at Petrobas between 1997 to 2003, before becoming a consultant engineer in the gas and petroleum industry.
Following a trial, Miranda was convicted of thirty-seven counts of money laundering before the 13th Federal Justice Court of Curitiba and sentenced to 6 years and 8 months, which was later reduced on appeal.
The UK acts
In 2020, the SFO obtained an Account Freezing Order against funds of $7,699,204.09, and £698,635.98 held in Miranda’s name in UK accounts at EFG Private Bank Limited. They suspected these funds were obtained from the same money laundering Miranda had been convicted of in Brazil.
This marked the start of the SFO’s investigation into Miranda, which involved requests for Mutual Legal Assistance to Brazil to obtain further evidence relating to him. The proceedings culminated in the Westminster Magistrates’ Court making the SFO’s largest ever account forfeiture of over $8m against Miranda’s funds.
Rowing back Lava Jato
However, in the following years Brazil saw the reversal of many convictions related to Operation Car Wash, including that of former President Lula da Silva in 2021, often on procedural grounds related to the admissibility of evidence and the jurisdiction of courts. Amidst this controversy, the Brazilian Supreme Federal Court handed down a ruling about the admissibility of certain evidence acquired from the Odebrecht computer system which had been used in prosecutions, which was subsequently extended to Miranda’s case.
In December 2023, Miranda’s convictions were quashed by the Brazilian Supreme Federal Court: Brazil’s apex court found that the original Curitiba Court lacked jurisdiction to try him. Following this, the Regional Electoral Court of Rio de Janeiro ruled that the earlier exclusionary ruling meant there was insufficient evidence to sustain Miranda’s conviction, and his prosecution was barred on limitation grounds.
The appeal
Miranda brought an appeal of the account forfeiture order against him, which kicked off in Southwark Crown Court in 2025 but was only part heard before being adjourned. The retired oil executive is arguing that he believed the transfers of money he facilitated using the account in question were related to tax affairs, as opposed to being bribes.
As part of this appeal, Miranda sought a ruling to stop the SFO from relying on evidence from his criminal prosecution in Brazil – evidence which was originally obtained by the SFO using the Mutual Legal Assistance process. He argued this should be prohibited because a member of Brazil’s Supreme Court ruled that the original decision to share this material with the SFO was annulled.
However, his arguments failed, with a judge at Southwark Crown Court ruling that once the material had been lawfully provided to the UK, it was for the UK authorities to decide how it was to be used and the SFO were not prevented from relying on it.
