Nelma Kodama: The queen of dirty moneyNow streaming on Netflix, Nelma Mitsue Penasso Kodama is the true-crime story of an unapologetic criminal. In the 2000s, Nelma Mitsue Penasso Kodama became one of Brazil’s most important “dollar traffickers,” a middleman for people looking to exchange dirty money for clean money. But when she was arrested, prosecuted, and convicted as part of a major federal corruption investigation, Kodama bowed to the publicity and eventual house arrest. In personal interviews, Kodama tells her own story and Queen of dirty money She also talks to her accomplices, politicians involved in corruption and journalists who covered the story. She was convicted of money laundering and is accused of drug trafficking. But Kodama remains strangely defiant. “There’s nothing wrong with that,” she says. “I mean, there was. Because it was illegal…”
NELMA KODAMA – THE QUEEN OF DIRTY MONEYSTREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
The essence: “My highlight was not getting to the end, where no woman had ever gotten to before. It was getting there in style.” Walking with Nelma Kodama through her bright apartment in a São Paulo high-rise, with all its expensive touches – “I bought all my furniture in Italy” – you might think she was simply a successful businesswoman. And in a way, that’s true. But then you notice the hard plastic accessory with LED lights that complements her sleek, expensive-looking heels. The ankle monitoring device is a condition of her house arrest for breaking the law. But Kodama wonders: what is going on? is Breaking the law? If her job as a dollar trafficker existed as part of a criminal network that included corporations, politicians, and a constant flow of international currency available for the taking, then Kodama seems to have decided she was just another person looking for her cut.
In The queen of dirty moneyIn this article, we first learn how the dollar trade worked. The scheme grew from local in São Paulo, to regional in Paraguay, to international, with so many wire transfers between Brazil, the United States, and China that Kodama’s operation depended on hundreds of cell phones to manage it. (If you’ve ever seen the 2006 film version of Miami Vice(The same financially porous region that is key to Kodama’s foreign exchange dealings — the “triple border” where Brazil and Paraguay meet Argentina — figured heavily in the plot.) Things were going well, and Kodama left behind her intentions of becoming a dentist in favor of a lavish lifestyle filled with Chanel perfumes, exclusive boutiques, and spontaneous first-class trips to Paris. But when her professional and personal ties to a high-profile money launderer named Alberto Youssef were discovered, Kodama found herself caught up in a federal raid that became known as Operation Car Wash.
Blurry reenactments tell part of the story, but it’s interviews with Nelma Kodama herself that dominate the proceedings, whether sitting with her dog in her posh apartment or in jail, raging on drug trafficking charges. That’s right, when she was already facing charges as part of Lava Jato, Kodama was also arrested in Portugal on suspicion of importing cocaine into South America. “She has to be in charge,” one former conspirator says of how Kodama is doing. “She couldn’t get back into the business, so she decided to enter the world of drugs,” adds a Brazilian politician incriminated in Lava Jato. But, according to Kodama, she was only doing what was allowed. Not legal, but allowed. Because government and financial interests far larger than those of one woman do it every damn day.
What movies will it remind you of? Financial system fraudsters profiled in Netflix true crime documentary Lords of the scam They also devoted themselves to living the high life shamelessly, until it cost them dearly. And if you were caught… Griselda On Netflix, there are plenty of similarities between Sofia Vergara’s Colombia and then-Miami-based drug lord Nelma Kodama, a comparison made even stronger by the reenactments in Queen of dirty moneywhich are filmed as if it were a television drama.
Performance worth watching: The case of Manuela Nunes Ferreira is interesting. Although the lawyer, who lives in Coimbra (Portugal), represents Nelma Kodama in the drug trafficking case against her in that country, Ferreira’s interviews focus less on the ongoing litigation than on the relationship the two women have established on a personal level. “We are very similar in many ways, starting with our bad taste in men. We laugh. A lot. In fact, we once laughed about that very thing.”
Memorable dialogue: “On the fringes of politics,” says Brazilian journalist Manu Gaspar, “there is a whole ecosystem for dirty money to continue circulating. Because of corruption, the need to pay bribes, to distribute illegal advantages, black market dollar exchangers – like Kodama – and financial operators work to circulate that money in this underworld, under the radar of the law.”
Sex and skin: Parts of the recreations in Queen of dirty money They are a little racy, like when Kodama met Youssef for hotel escapades that combined business and pleasure. But the bubble baths are a blur and the sex games are only hinted at.
Our opinion: The timeline in Nelma Kodama: The queen of dirty money Kodama’s case is poorly defined, and that can make it difficult to follow the trajectory of its protagonist’s criminal activities. One moment, she’s chatty in her gleaming São Paulo apartment, regaling the camera with stories of selfies with fans who adore her ankle monitor. The next, she’s dressed in prison orange, laughing at how she corrects her fellow inmates when they refer to her as a “dollar thief” instead of a dollar trafficker. Both Kodama’s story and the larger corruption scandal she was part of were big news in Brazil. It involved a giant state-owned company, Petrobras, there were prominent politicians involved, and federal judges who made bold plays to obtain eye-catching convictions, ultimately leading to the entire case teetering at the finish line. But that narrative quickly becomes murky in Queen of dirty moneythat either doesn’t define the various players well enough or relies too heavily on brief news clips for its exposition. There’s another true crime documentary lurking in the margins of this one that would certainly be relevant. But as it stands, Queen It only tells part of that story, instead allowing Kodama to be the protagonist. In that sense, he is an interesting figure and a citation machine. But we would have liked to have been able to better understand the scope of his criminal behaviour in relation to the broader context of endemic financial corruption on an international scale.
Our calling: Nelma Kodama: The queen of dirty money It’s a STREAM IT, because the dollar trader at the center of the story is actually eminently quotable and quite relatable as a woman making moves within male-dominated networks that don’t respect her acumen. But you may also need to do a little background research of your own if you really want to follow her convoluted narrative.
Johnny Loftus (@glennganges) is a freelance writer and editor based in Chicago. His work has appeared in The Village Voice, All Music Guide, Pitchfork Media, and Nicki Swift.AA
