Brazil is cracking down on corruption. Now the case is being undone.

One of the biggest anti-corruption efforts in recent history is being quietly brushed off.

Brazil’s Supreme Court is throwing out key evidence, overturning key convictions and suspending billions of dollars in fines in a historic series of bribery cases. He argues that biased investigators, prosecutors and judges have broken laws in their greedy pursuit of justice.

In rulings last year – based largely on legal challenges from people who claimed they were treated unfairly – the court reversed cases in which senior politicians and business leaders had pleaded guilty.

The decisions are now spreading across Latin America, leading to the overturning of at least 115 convictions in Brazil, according to anti-corruption groups. The annulments also cast doubt on many other cases in Panama, Ecuador, Peru and Argentina, including the convictions of several former presidents.

This all amounts to a full investigation into Operation Car Wash, a sweeping investigation that began a decade ago and uncovered a vast corruption scheme spanning at least twelve countries. Investigators found that companies paid billions of dollars in bribes to government officials in exchange for public projects.

The results upended Latin America’s political landscape, led to the closure of multinational companies and resulted in billions of dollars in fines and hundreds of convictions. Some of the region’s most prominent politicians and leaders were sent to prison, including Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

Their failure is now a grim conclusion to an investigation that was once seen as a sea change in Latin America and promised to root out the systemic corruption that had ruined the foundations of governments.