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Development: On 7 July the defence ministry announced that over the past month it has redeployed 5,308 soldiers from the offensives against organised crime.

Significance: This is the first major strategic redeployment since the government launched the offensives when it took office last December. It shows that the government feels that the worst of the violence may now be over.

The government is running offensives, which combine police and troops in 10 of Mexico's 32 states. The defence ministry said that it now has 16,650 troops deployed with policy in anti-crime operations.

The Secretarí­a de Defensa Nacional (Sedena) said that altogether 20,641 troops are involved in anti-drugs operations. Just over half, (11,342 soldiers) are now involved in joint anti-crime operations with the police in eight states. The two big joint operations are in the Sierra Madre (Durango, Sinaloa and Chihuahua) and in Nuevo León and Tamaulipas. The Sierra Madre operation involves 3,954 soldiers and the Nuevo León-Tamaulipas 3,697. The other three states with Operativos Conjuntos are Michoacán, Guerrero and Baja California, where the deployment is confined to Tijuana.

The Sedena does not include the military deployments in Tabasco and Veracruz in its list of joint operations. This may be because the army is supporting the local police in these states rather than the federal police.

The Colombian government has had to admit that its military has been seriously infiltrated by drug traffickers and guerrilla organisations for two purposes: to obtain intelligence about military operations and to recruit officers about to retire into a 'hit' team similar to Mexico's notorious Zetas. The admissions were made between late July and early August.

The first admission came from defence minister Juan Manuel Santos on 30 July. He revealed that the authorities had been alerted to an intelligence leak when they examined a laptop computer seized from "a Farc commander" weeks earlier. Santos said this had allowed military counter-intelligence to feed misinformation to the so-called "narcoterrorists". He did not give any indication, however, of how long the leak had been providing genuine intelligence.

Santos said some officers had been arrested, and that others would follow -among which would be "some of high rank". The very next day General Freddy Padilla, commander of military forces, appeared to contradict Santos, stating, "It is no secret that criminal organisations try to infiltrate the agencies of the state [but] no high-ranking officers are involved: we're talking about a lieutenant-colonel and people of lesser rank."

Santos was proven right. On 6 August he announced that the public prosecution service had issued arrest warrants against three colonels. He did not disclose their names, but did say that they hade been serving in the department of Valle del Cauca.

The day Santos made his first revelation, the newspaper El Tiempo reported that links had been discovered between Diego Montoya ('Don Diego'), who heads up the Norte del Valle drugs cartel, and army officers and other officials. The purpose behind the links, it is reported, were to recruit army officers about to retire and Colombians who had served in the US military in Iraq into his "security" team, which is known as Los Machos and led by retired Major Juan Carlos Rodrí­guez.

A key person in this ring was Carolina Laverde, who was in charge of approaching likely candidates with the job offer. Laverde, a civilian in charge of personnel files at the defence ministry, was arrested in July after being detected meeting frequently with serving officers and a retired sergeant. According to El Tiempo, Rodrí­guez's role was confirmed by recorded conversations and investigations into these links had led to the arrest of retired Colonel Javier Escobar Martí­nez.

Minister Santos has said that military intelligence was undergoing a major overhaul as a result of these developments. Politicians -among them president of congress Nancy Patricia Gutiérrez- have called for a thorough investigation of the extent to which the military have been infiltrated.

Development: On 11 September former president Eduardo Duhalde announced that he would seek the leadership of the Partido Justicialista.

Significance: Duhalde's move will pit him against President Néstor Kirchner, the current president who looks almost certain to be succeeded by his wife as president after the 28 October elections. Néstor Kirchner has long said that when his wife becomes president he will focus on becoming leader of the Partido Justicialista, the formal name for the Peronist movement. The elections for the post of party president are likely to take place in 2008.

Duhalde wants to prevent Peronismo becoming Kirchnerismo. Duhalde stabilised the country after the crisis of 2001 and handed over to President Néstor Kirchner in 2003. At the time, Duhalde said that he would support the Kirchner government. Now, according to Duhalde's allies, Duhalde has said: "I always said that my support and my silence was for this government not for another: this government ends on 10 December."

Duhalde's powerbase is in Buenos Aires, where Kirchner's support is thin. In June Kirchner's candidate for mayor of Buenos Aires was trounced by a rightwing businessman, Mauricio Macri. Duhalde's problem is that he has been out of the game so long. Macri recently said that he had assumed Duhalde had retired.

President Kirchner's wife, Cristina Fernández, looks on course to win the presidency easily: in the opinion polls she is 30 percentage points ahead of her nearest rival, Roberto Lavagna, Kirchner's former economy minister. Lavagna is on 12 points.

Development: On 11 October the competition regulator, the Comisión Federal de Competencia, decided that Mexicana could not bid for its rival airline, Aeroméxico.

Significance: This leaves the battle for Aeroméxico between a collection of the Mexican great and good backed by Banamex, and the father and son combination of Alberto and Moisés Saba. Mexicana had topped both their offers by biding US$200m for Aeroméxico which is being sold by the government.

The CFC ruled that a joint Mexicana-Aeroméxico airline would have too much power to set prices in the market and could distort competition. Currently the Saba's have made the highest bid (US$166m). The board of Aeroméxico should be embarrassed by the auction: it had recommended the Saba's bid to shareholders when they offered US$99m.

Looking behind Mexico's record cocaine haul

The discovery and seizure of 23 tonnes of cocaine in the Pacific port of Manzanillo has been pounced upon by Mexican and US officials as the most persuasive argument yet in favour of congressional approval for the US$500m Iniciativa Mérida package of antidrugs aid for Mexico requested by President George W Bush. Less ostensibly - and paradoxically - it has raised questions about various aspects of President Felipe Calderón's antidrugs strategy.

The Manzanillo haul was a major coup. Mexico's chief federal prosecutor, Eduardo Medina Mora, went over the top when he hailed it as 'the biggest seizure of cocaine in the history of the world', but not by much. Three years ago the US Navy and Coastguard seized 28t of cocaine from two fishing boats navigating off the Galápagos islands. The Manzanillo haul was just under twice as large as the previous record seizure (of 11.7t in Tampico on 5 October). It was also larger than the sum total of cocaine seizures in 2006 (21.3t). Indeed, this latest coup raised the total interdicted in October to 35.5t, and the total for the first 10 months of the year to 48.5t.

Mexico's success in intercepting cocaine shipments bound for the US has been credited as the chief single cause of the 44% increase in the street price for cocaine in the US in the first nine months of this year. Most of these interdictions, though, have taken place outside the massive deployments of troops and paramilitary police units ordered by President Calderón in 10 states. While shared intelligence has contributed to big seizures at sea or upon arrival at port, chance has been an important factor elsewhere. Manzanillo is a case in point.

The Manzanillo seizure resulted from the curiosity of Marine personnel deployed in an inter-agency task force, after customs had cleared the containers in which the cocaine was hidden. The Marines started wondering about the plausibility of anyone importing six containers full of soap from Colombia. In two of the containers they found the drug. It was a repeat performance: on 13 October in the same port, two tonnes of pseudoephedrine were found in a largely intuitive search of cargo also already cleared by customs. This pattern has called into question both the efficacy and probity of those controlling incoming traffic.

The absence of prior intelligence became manifest when the authorities initially said that the cocaine belonged to the Gulf cartel, only to change tack on 5 November and state that they were making a 'well-founded assumption' that it belonged to the Cartel del Pací­fico, described as an alliance between Sinaloa cartel leader Joaquí­n Guzmán ('el Chapo') and Ismael Zambada ('el Mayo'), presented as 'one of the leaders of the Juárez cartel'.

The unusually large volume of the last two seizures has been interpreted by some analysts as indicating that the Mexican cartels have been restocking to compensate for the amounts lost to Mexican interdiction over the past year. That this would happen was foreseen in the recently released National Drug Threat Assessment 2008, prepared by the National Drug Intelligence Center of the US Department of Justice.

Another thing the large volumes indicate is the continuing capacity of the Colombian drugs trade to respond to market fluctuations, belying the claims made by outgoing DEA director Karen Tandy and John Walters, director of the White House's Office of National Drug Control Policy, in early November in Bogotá. They said that the nine-month spell of rising street prices revealed that the supply chain had been seriously affected by eradication and interdiction efforts.

Development: Brazil's ruling party, the Partido dos Trabalhadores, re-elected Ricardo Berzoini as its president, according to preliminary results issued on 17 December.

Significance: Berzoini's re-election means that PT members were not willing to change the party's policies despite a series of scandals involving its members and difficulties with its allies in the governing coalition. Indeed, even President Lula da Silva, who criticised the PT for creating problems with other parties, came out in support for Berzoini.

Berzoini was declared winner with 70% of the votes counted. He received 62% of valid votes. This was the second round of the leadership election. In the first round Berzoini and his faction, the Campo Majoritário, were fiercely criticised for the PT's loss of its whiter-than-white image. In the second round campaign, however, there were no talks about ethics or changes in attitude towards coalition parties.

After being declared winner Berzoini said he would lead the PT to victory in the 2010 general elections. With Lula unable to run for a third time due to constitutional constraints however, the party has little chance of success - unless the PT decides that it is in its interests to change the constitution to allow Lula to run again. Some members of the party have already flirted with the idea.

Development: The union representing workers at Indec, the state statistics department, declared on 29 January that the inflation rate in 2007 was between 22.3% and 26.2%.

Significance: This figure is three times higher than the official figure of 8.5% consumer price inflation last year, and it will reignite the row over whether the Argentine government is being honest about the rate of inflation. The timing of this announcement is unfortunate for the government, which is currently negotiating with unions over wage levels: workers will not accept the new salaries proposed by the government if they believe that the increase in wages does not keep pace with inflation.

A number of private-sector economists were quick to endorse the alternative inflation figure, which was compiled by some of Indec's own employees and announced by the Asociación de Trabajadores del Estado (ATE) at a public meeting outside the statistics agency's headquarters. The event was held a year to the day after the government sacked Graciela Bevacqua from her role in charge of the consumer price index and replaced her with Beatriz Paglieri, an ally of Commerce Secretary Guillermo Moreno.

The most glaring discrepancy between the official data and that announced by the ATE (which was based on price figures from the province of Mendoza) concerned the cost of food and drinks. The government has stated that inflation in this category was 8.6% last year but the ATE put the figure at almost 40%.

Development: On 3 March two political alliances registered with the supreme electoral court (CSE) for the November municipal elections.

Significance: The two main political forces competing will be the liberals and the ruling Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional (FSLN). The liberals signed up under the Alianza Partido Constitucionalista which includes the Partido Liberal Constitucionalista, Vamos con Eduardo, the party of Eduardo Montealegre, former leader of the Alianza Liberal Nicaragüense and the Partido Liberal Independiente (PLI) among others.

The Sandinistas will run under the Convergiencia Nacional which also includes smaller parties such as the Unión Democrática Cristiana (UDC) and Movimiento de Unidad Cristina (MUC).

The FSLN currently run 87 of country's 153 municipalities. They hold Managua and are hoping to win a further 13 in the elections.

Development: On 6 April President Nicanor Duarte said that he had "facilitated" the release from prison of presidential candidate Lino Oviedo in October 2007.

Significance: Duarte's comments - which Oviedo has fervently denied - are the latest attack in what has become an increasingly dirty electoral war. Duarte is supporting the candidacy of Blanca Ovelar, who is representing the ruling Partido Colorado in the impending presidential elections on 20 April. Oviedo, a retired general running for opposition party Unión Nacional de Ciudadanos Éticos (UNACE), accused Duarte of distorting the circumstances of his release from prison last year in order to damage his candidacy.

Oviedo had served over half of a ten year sentence for an attempted coup in 1996; it was suggested at the time that his release was engineered by Duarte in order to split the opposition vote.

This latest spat comes on the back of a series of accusations of underhand electioneering and slander, which have been levelled by all three political parties.

The Alianza Patriótica para el Cambio (APC) led by current frontrunner Fernando Lugo, has accused the Colorados of carrying out a "dirty war" against the former bishop after he was portrayed in one of their posters wearing military camouflage gear under the label "Ambassador for the Farc in Paraguay".

Indeed, both Oviedo and Ovelar have attempted to use Lugo's perceived links with "Bolivarian" heads of state, President Evo Morales of Bolivia and President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela to discredit the APC leader.

Nevertheless, Lugo, who enjoys widespread popular support, continues to lead the presidential race; a recent poll, published by First Análisis y Estudios, on 3 April showed Lugo with 33.6% of voter intentions, versus 27.4% for Ovelar, with Oviedo languishing in third on 24.6%.

Development: On 12 May the Haitian chamber of deputies refused the appointment of Ericq Pierre as new prime minister.

Significance: The no-vote by the chamber of deputies, because Pierre was unable to provide a birth certificate for his grandparents, is disappointing for President René Préval. It means that the process of naming a new prime minister will have to start all over again, with the added problem that the delay in the senate elections means that the senate is now seriously under strength.

12 May marked exactly one month since the Haitian parliament removed former prime minister Jacques Edouard Alexis from his job as a result of violent street protests at rising food prices which left six people dead, including a Nigerian soldier from the UN peace-keeping force in Haiti (Minustah), and over 60 people injured.

Pierre had already been approved as prime minister on 8 May by the senate (17 votes in favour and two abstentions, out of a total of 27). However, according to the Haitian constitution, the prime minister must be approved by both the senate and the chamber of deputies. The latter turned Pierre down on 12 May by 35 votes in favour, 51 against and four abstentions, on the basis that he was unable to prove, as demanded in the constitution, that he is the son and grandson of Haitians. The chamber of deputies had already turned him down once before, 10 years earlier, for the same reason.

It will be even more difficult to approve a new prime minister now, because the senate requires a quorum of 16 senators as minimum to approve any proposed candidates. However, nine senators left on 11 May upon completing their two-year mandates, leaving only a total of 18 in the job.

Development: On 17 June the defence minister, Nelson Jobim, apologised in person to the parents of three young people who were killed after being handed over to rival drug dealers by a group of soldiers.

Significance: The case shocked Brazil, prompting Jobim's unusual action. He met the boys' parents in the Providencia favela in Rio de Janeiro. Jobim promised that such mistake would never be repeated.

At least seven soldiers, three sergeants and one officer were involved. They caught three adolescents on 14 June and transported them in a military truck to a neighbouring favela, controlled by a drug gang which was a bitter rival of the gang in Providencia to which the youths belonged. The bodies of the three youngsters were found hours later: they had all been tortured.

Jobim also visited the barracks housing the soldiers who police the favelas. He told them that they must not respond to provocation. Since the bodies were found, locals in Providencia have mounted several attacks on soldiers in their streets. The soldiers have responded with tear gas.

The army says that it has no intention of ending its policing operations in the favelas even though the federal justice minister, Tarso Genro, said that the army is not suitable for such work.

Development: On 21 August the opposition presented an alternative constitution to challenge the text proposed by the government of President Rafael Correa.
 
Significance: The so-called "Citizen's constitution" was drawn up by opposition delegates from the national constituent assembly to express their opposition to Correa's constitutional project. If the new constitution is not approved in the referendum on 28 September, the opposition asambleí­stas have said that they will present the document to (the currently dissolved) congress, which will be re-instated.

The alternative constitution highlights concerns expressed by opposition sectors and the Roman Catholic Church that the document proposed by Correa's Alianza Paí­s (AP) is "too statist" and may make it easier for the government to expropriate private property.
 
Rightwing opposition delegates César Rohón, Pablo Lucio Paredes, Eduardo Maruri, Alfredo Ortiz and Leonardo Viteri presented their "constitución ciudadana" at a press conference, describing it as "democratic, citizen-centred [and] inclusive". It comprises 150 articles (compared to the 444 of AP's proposed document) and, according to Paredes, "guarantees the environment, prioritises quality of life..., protects private property, and guarantees the US dollar" as the national currency. (President Correa has talked in the past of removing the US dollar and either returning to the 'sucre' or creating a new currency.)
 
In addition, the opposition's alternative text proposes that the currently unicameral parliament be split into an upper and a lower chamber and includes the possibility of revoking the mandate of senior government authorities. The AP constitution, which is due to be voted on by more than nine million Ecuadoreans next month, has been accused of concentrating too much power in the executive, which could worsen politicization in the judiciary.

Chile:Fruit exports in the crop year (September 2007 to August 2008) were up by 8% in value at US$2.98bn.

Development:On 28 October protesters at Moquegua took seven police officers hostage.

Significance: The protests are the first test of the new government, headed by Yehude Simon, and the interior minister, Remigio Hernani. The protests, which have been violent, are over the way mining royalties are distributed between local authorities. The protesters at Moquegua say that neighbouring Tacna gets more in mining royalties than their city, even though it has fewer mines.

The protesters claim that the police have been shooting at them and some protesters threatened to burn the seven hostages. Other protesters managed to send the seven policemen to the comparative safety of the cathedral in Moquegua.

Development: On 1 December President Hugo Chávez said that a fresh referendum on a constitutional reform allowing for indefinite presidential re-election could be held as soon as February 2009.

Significance:  Only a week after the government suffered some important losses in regional elections (held on 23 November), President Chávez 's fresh bid for re-election is controversial to say the least. Exactly a year ago (2 December 2007),  Chávez suffered his first ever electoral defeat when the public narrowly voted against (49%-51%) a set of constitutional reform proposals, including one to allow him to run again once his current term (his second consecutive mandate under the 1999 constitution) ends in 2012.

President Chávez signalled yesterday (1 December) that the “battle for the amendment" would begin immediately. He instructed his Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela (PSUV) to begin the process  of preparing the text of the amendment and said that he intended to put it to a vote as quickly as possible, indicating a potential date of February 2009.

The president acknowledged failings in the previous December 2007 vote, suggesting it was too complicated. The new consultation, he said, would be very simple, just a single article.

The opposition, emboldened by its recent poll wins in key states like Miranda (and the municipality of Caracas) has cried foul, arguing that the president is “putting on a show" in order to keep electoral tensions high and distract the population from his government's failure to address key issues like run-away inflation, rising crime and insecurity and the likelihood of a tough year to come for the economy, amid a sharp drop in global oil prices (upon which the Chávez administration relies for over half its fiscal revenues).

Yesterday (1 December) the president of the rightwing opposition  party Acción Democrática (AD), Ví­ctor Bolí­var, said that “President Chávez is in a hurry to begin consultations on the constitutional reform to seek indefinite re-election because he knows that he has lost popular support and that his image will deteriorate even further as an economic crisis takes hold in 2009".

A local coordinator for the opposition Primero Justicia commented that “Chávez has reached the ceiling of his popularity and he has a sell-by date".

The AD leader added, “Chávez knows that that he will not win the referendum but he thinks he has nothing to lose. What he is seeking to do is create confrontation and distract the focus of attention away from his bad government and the economic crisis".

Certainly, such tactics are well worn by Chávez and typically they work in his favour, by heightening emotions and polarising the electorate into firm pro- and anti- Chávez camps. On Monday (1 December) the president declared that there could be “no Chavismo without Chávez " and that his continuation in power would be “decisive" in order to continue with the Bolivarian Socialist Revolution.

Any election thus becomes an all-or-nothing plebiscite on the president himself, who, despite the growing economic problems on the ground, remains popular (his popularity rating is at 58%, according to the most recent surveys).

The opposition argues that the government may not technically be permitted to hold a fresh referendum. Article 435 of Chávez 's 1999 Constitution states that any reform initiative not approved cannot be put forward again in the same constitutional period. The PSUV responds that legally the initiative will be a brand new reform, as it will be put forward by the National Assembly and not (as in 2007) by the President.

Under the constitution, once the required signatures have been gathered, the proposal can be put forward by 30% of the members of the unicameral National Assembly (which is almost entirely dominated by Chavistas); by 15% of the electorate; or by the president himself.

Development: On 14 January President Cristina Fernández made her first public appearance after her reported blackout, announcing measures to stimulate the country ´s agricultural sector.

Significance: Unsurprisingly, the measures were almost unanimously rejected by farming representatives, who are demanding the suspension of export taxes on cash crops, especially soya (on which a 35% tax is levelled). Unless the government offers further concessions to the beleaguered agricultural sector, it is likely to face a fresh round of protests from farmers in the lead up to October's crucial midterms.

The measures announced by the government include: subsidised loans for the purchase of machinery, government feedlots and a price control on fertilizers. Additionally, the minimum weight requirement for the slaughter of animals will be temporarily reduced.

The country ´s agricultural associations said that the government's response will do almost nothing to bail out farmers, who have been battered by a record breaking drought. The only bright side for the sector is that the drought has pushed up soya prices in recent weeks, after they fell by some 40% from record highs in July 2008.

Development: On 19 February a member of the Organization of American States-sponsored Inter-American Convention against Corruption filed an appeal before the attorney general's office, accusing the president of the supreme electoral court (TSE), Roberto Rivas, of corruption.

Significance: The appeal will further undermine the electoral body, which already under question amid widespread accusations of fraud in the November 2008 municipal elections.

The latest court appeal is unlikely however to result in any immediate action against Rivas, given that he currently enjoys immunity from prosecution in his capacity as president of the TSE, one of the institutions politicised under the power-sharing pact between the ruling Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional and the opposition Partido Liberal Constitucionalista.

Rivas is accused of various crimes, including tax fraud to the tune of some US$85,000; using US$14,000 in public funds for a private donation to a Catholic Church in 2001 and; sidestepping laws regulating the award of public contracts through purchasing some US$48,000 worth of electoral material directly, without subjecting it to the bidding process.

Rivas has so far refused to comment on the accusations.

Development: On 31 March the defence minister, Juan Manuel Santos, launched a new offensive against the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (Farc) with the aim of pushing the group to “the point of no return".

Significance: The government is refusing to bend to pressure from the group to negotiate. Santos's announcement came two days after the Farc dropped its longstanding demand for a demilitarised zone as a condition for a prisoner and hostage swap.

His hard-line was backed by President Alvaro Uribe, who assured delegates at an anti-terrorism conference in Bogotá that the government would not hold peace talks with the group until it declared a “verifiable" ceasefire.

Santos' initiative, dubbed “strategic leap" ('salto estratégico'), foresees a “massive and sustained military offensive" in areas where the group remains active, combined with the use of intelligence to target Farc leaders. Santos mentioned specifically the deployment of “containment force" in border areas, as well as other zones where guerrillas are mobile. This should please Ecuador, which has been demanding that Colombian tighten its border security since the Colombian military bombed a Farc encampment on Ecuadorian soil in March 2008.

The military assault will be combined the “social rehabilitation" of areas where the Farc is traditionally dominant. The government, Santos said, would also fight the “political and legal war" waged by rebel groups, which seek to “infiltrate civil society" and “whip up a media circus by drip-feeding [hostage] releases".

Development: On 10 May the first major opinion poll since the outbreak of swine fever found a swing to the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI).

Significance: What is interesting is that the race for the mid-term congressional elections on 5 July is becoming a two-horse race. The leftwing Partido de la Revolución Democrática which had tried to criticise the government's handling of the swine flu outbreak, is in free fall. According to the poll, by Berumen y Asociados, the PRD national support is now under 10%.

Berumen's poll in El Universal, a Mexico City newspaper, put the PRI on 32.6% (44%, excluding don't knows and may-not-votes) and the PAN on 27.4% (or 36.8% with the exclusions). Even with the exclusions the PRD is only on 13%, less than half its score in the congressional elections in 2006. The only comfort for the PRD is that its congressional support is heavily concentrated in Mexico City where the popularity of the mayor, Marcelo Ebrard, may act as a counterweight to the party's otherwise dismal prospects.

Development: On 16 June, amidst continued scandal over the extent of official corruption in the senate, the upper house president, José Sarney, gave a 35-minute speech which appeared to finally pave the way for a root-and-branch reform of the bloated 83-seat institution, which has an annual budget of US$1.3bn in 2009.

Significance: Former president Sarney (1985-1990), who is on his third (non consecutive) term as senate leader, sought to deflect attention from recent media stories revealing how the Sarney clan itself benefitted from senate nepotism, declaring that “the crisis is not mine, it's the senate's". Sarney's disingenuous claims to have “inherited" the situation and his piecemeal efforts to deal with the current crisis may now have to be replaced with something rather more fundamental. Crucially, there finally appears to be broad cross party support for a thorough reform, if only to put an end to the crisis, which has damaged all the parties ahead of elections in 2010.

Since taking over as senate president in February, Sarney has presided over chaos, with inter party bickering and mutual corruption accusations preventing any normal legislative work.

The senate has been rocked by a series of revelations detailing travel expenses and overtime abuses, nepotism, and a massively bloated bureaucracy.

The tipping point came in the past week, when the media revealed the use by the main senate administrative body of irregular 'secret acts' used to appoint civil servants to specifically benefit certain senators.

The attorney general has launched an official investigation, headed by Judge Anna Carolina Resende.