The risk map behind the headlines

by Andrea
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In recent months, three police operations have gained prominence and left the market on alert: Icarus, hidden carbon and rejection. Launched in August, Operation Icarus investigates an alleged tax corruption scheme involving ICMS credits, in which façade consultancies would have been used to intermediate millionaire bribes to tax auditors. A few days later, Operation Hidden Carbon Exposed the evidence of a money laundering and evasion network in the fuel sector that would have moved billions of reais with the support of fintechs, investment funds and fraudulent imports. Already in September, Operation Rejection pointed to suspicions of purchase of environmental and mining licenses upon payment of improper advantages, in processes marked by fragile opinions and authorizations outside the legal rite.

Although they have occurred in different sectors, all these operations reveal a common denominator: the fragility of control mechanisms that should have functioned as a deviation prevention. When corporate governance, risk management and compliance (GRC) failures, critical processes can be captured, manipulated or simply ignored, making room for illicit practices to be institutionalized. What we are seeing in headlines are not just isolated deviations, but symptoms of recurring corporate vulnerabilitieswhether financial, regulatory or environmental.

But what’s the point of consuming this news, commenting on the corridors or reposting on social networks, if none of this translates into concrete change in your organization? Each operation triggered is, in practice, a public X-ray of the failures they could, and should have been foreseen and detected. A living learning laboratory.

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What operations reveal about the blind spots of the corporate

In the case of Operation Icarus, facade consultancies would have been used to intermediate illicit payments to tax auditors, highlighting weaknesses that could have been detected by basic alerts. The concentration of decision -making power in a few interlocutors, especially when it comes to public agents, significantly increases the risk of corruption. This context, so common in corporate daily life, should light the first yellow light. No less important, atypical results, non -standard approval deadlines or remedies conditioned to success are red flags (red flags) that ask for immediate attention. And when third parties, or not in the context of the relationship with public agents, have ties with politically exposed people or family members of servers, the need for diligence becomes even more critical. Closing your eyes to these signs is to treat tax risk as a mere accounting formality, when it should be integrated strategically into risk management in the corporate environment.

In Operation Hidden Carbon, a money laundering and evasion scheme in the fuel sector would have moved billions of reais with the support of fintechs acting as “parallel banks” and structured investment funds to hide final beneficiaries. From a corporate point of view, financial operations disproportionate to the declared size of a company, opaque corporate structures and funds without clear economic rational are red flags worrying. This police operation makes it clear that the risk is not only in illicit transactions itself, but in the inability of organizations to monitor and connect data from different areas (such as legal, financial and GRC) in order to identify inconsistencies before they see scandal.

Also, the operation rejected the fragility of the environmental and mining licensing process, with authorizations allegedly granted outside the legal rite, flexible technical opinions without justification and recurring consultancies appearing in multiple processes. Without quality management and without active dialogue between the areas, the traceability of the information presented to different authorities is lost, the control over environmental conditions is committed and space for manipulation for the benefit of private interests is paid. Although commonly associated with ESG or environmental areas, licensing processes involve legal and regulatory risks and, if corrupted, may compromise the business in its essence.

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These three stories have common flaws that draw attention. Controls existed, but worked in silos. Red flags were there, but they went unnoticed because each area only took care of their piece. For the GRC professional, this finding should serve as a warning: the biggest risk is not in sophisticated illicit, but in the inability of the organization of connecting signs that, isolated, seem harmless, but together reveal the true dimension of the problem.

From the news to the risk map

Each reported scandal is also an invitation to act. More than understanding the facts, it is up to the GRC professional to use them as a trigger to review their own prevention structure to the practice of conduct deviations: If this case happened in my company, would the risks have been properly mapped? Are employees of my company aware that these risks are also present in our daily corporate day?

Turning news into management inputs means revisiting risk matrices and reevaluating internal measures. It is at this moment that the news becomes a learning practice tool:

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  • Does my company maintain a relationship with any of the companies or people mentioned in the investigation? If so, what additional mitigation or monitoring measures need to be adopted immediately?
  • Have you been in the investigated public agents to contact my company processes or meetings? Do we have clear records of these interactions and conditions to review them independently?
  • Would our controls be able to identify the same media -reported red flags? Disproportionate financial transactions, non -economic consultancies, fragile technical opinions. If not, what needs to change?
  • Is there a structured response plan for search and seizure situations, imprisonment of executives or blockade of goods? All employees, from service to high management, do you know what to do in this situation?
  • Are our risk management processes integrated or still work in silos? Do areas exchange information or each one see only their piece of the problem?

If the answers to the questions raise concrete risks, it’s time to get out of inertia.

Relationships with companies cited in scandals should be immediately reevaluated: ask formal clarifications, require periodic reports and even consider the temporary suspension of the contract, noting that suppliers or partners involved in investigations need to be migrated to higher risk categories. For public agents mentioned in the media, it is worth reviewing all the documentation of processes in which they have acted, interview employees who had contact with these servers and, if necessary, request independent evaluation to confirm the legitimacy of conditions or decisions. And speaking of search and seizure, arrests and blockages of goods serve as an example for reviewing or creating crisis management plans.

Clear protocols created in the calm give the North about how to act at the time of inspections, which are the interim replacement mechanisms of remote executives and measures to ensure business continuity (including maintenance of payments and transparent stakeholder communication).

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News of crisis is not (only) subject of gossip, it is a tool

Recent operations make it evident that lack of integration between areas remains one of the largest blind spots of the corporate. Financial crimes do not only fall on compliance. They go through you, legal, audit, ex -ex was operations and sometimes even HR. Each area sees a piece of the problem, but if these signs do not connect, the company remains vulnerable. A GRC out of the box adds value exactly by promoting this integration, converting isolated fragments into a systemic view of risk before they become headlines.

It is not just about meeting regulators or authorities. The market precipites uncertainty: investors, customers and partners do not charge effect phrases, charge cadence, evidence and decisions. Each news of police operation, therefore, is not a problem “of the others”. It is a valuable input for developing or improving tools. It is a reminder that the next headline can bring your company’s name if learning is not incorporated today.

Do you read the news with a critical lens and to extract practical lessons from it to strengthen controls, integrate areas and make risk management more robust in your company? If the answer was “no”, here is the invitation. This is the difference between a GRC that reacts to seizures, and a GRC outside the box that learns from them before chaos beats the door.

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