[4] He was indicted in the scandal known as Operation Car Wash (Portuguese: Operação Lava Jato) involving the state-owned oil company Petrobras and other corporations.

[10] On 19 October 2016, Cunha was arrested by the Brazilian Federal Police,[11] accused of hiding approximately US$40 million worth of bribes in secret bank accounts[12] and on trying to tamper with investigations against him.

[15] When Anthony Garotinho was elected Governor of Rio de Janeiro in 1999, he appointed Francisco Silva as Secretary of Housing with Cunha as his deputy.

[18] With Garotinho's support, in 2001 Cunha assumed a vacant state representative's seat in the Legislative Assembly of Rio de Janeiro (ALERJ), which guaranteed him immunity against the public prosecutor's investigations.

[19] To the TSE (Brazilian Election Commission), Cunha reported receiving R$4.76 million in donations for the 2010 campaign, of which R$500,000 came from the construction company Camargo Corrêa.

Cunha was arrested on 19 October 2016 in Brasília and sent to the Complexo Médico Penal de Pinhais, a prison in the Curitiba metropolitan area, to await trial.

[23] On 30 March 2017, he found him guilty of corruption, tax evasion, and money laundering related to the Car Wash scheme, and sentenced him to 15 years and 4 months in prison.

One pertains to his alleged involvement in Operation Sépis[clarification needed] and the other, to accusations he received $5 million in bribes from ship construction contracts at Petrobrás.

In addition, Cunha is the respondent in civil proceedings over alleged "illicit advantages" he gave favored contractors in Petrobrás contract bidding.

[28] In May 2017, according to recordings obtained by O Globo, Brazilian President Michel Temer instructed Joesley Batista of the meatpacking conglomerate JBS S.A. to continue making payoffs to Cunha.

[30][31] As of July 2017, the Brazilian justice system still had not identified the owners of eleven offshore accounts that together received $4 million US from José Henriques in connection with the purchase of an oilfield in Benin.

[32] Cunha had previously been accused by Marcio Faria da Silva, a former vice president of Odebrecht, in testimony he proffered for a plea bargain in his own criminal case, of negotiating a $40 million US campaign donation to the PMDB.