Sergio Fernando Moro[1] (Portuguese pronunciation: [ˈsɛʁʒju ˈmoɾu]; born 1 August 1972) is a Brazilian jurist, former federal judge, college professor, and politician.

[2] In 2015, he gained national attention as one of the lead judges in Operation Car Wash (Portuguese: Operação Lava Jato), a criminal investigation into a high-profile corruption and bribery scandal involving government officials and business executives.

[5][6] On 29 October, shortly after the 2018 Brazilian general election, President-elect Bolsonaro nominated Moro to be Minister of Justice and Public Security.

[8][9] His appointment to Bolsonaro's cabinet and the way he had previously conducted Operation Car Wash (in particular former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's case) drew praise from his peers and a significant portion of the Brazilian society.

[10][11][12][13][14][15] Moro left the government in April 2020, mentioning the President's undue interference in the affairs of the Ministry of Justice and Public Security.

[28] He received his master's degree in 2000 from the Federal University of Paraná with the dissertation "Development and Judicial Enforcement of Constitutional Norms", guided by Professor Clèmerson Merlin Clève.

[30][31] In 2002, he completed a PhD in State Law at the same institution with the thesis "Constitutional Jurisdiction as Democracy", guided by Marçal Justen Filho.

[32][33] In 2007, he participated in the International Visitor Leadership Program in which he visited U.S. agencies and institutions responsible for preventing and combating money laundering.

[36] After leaving the judiciary and the Bolsonaro government, his first case as a lawyer, in 2020, favored controversial Israeli businessman Beny Steinmetz, in a dispute against mining company Vale S.A.[37] In the same year, Moro was hired as a partner by the consultancy Alvarez & Marsal, judicial administrator of the recovery process of the Odebrecht Group – the company targeted by then judge Moro during Lava Jato.

[39] In 2014, while working in Curitiba, Sergio Moro became one of the head judges in Operation Car Wash (Portuguese: Operação Lava Jato), a massive criminal investigation that started as a money laundering case and evolved to a huge corruption scandal crackdown, involving bribery and misappropriation of public funds by political authorities.

Despite some criticism from fellow jurists for being a "media darling", Moro enjoyed high popularity with the Brazilian people and became one of the main faces in the fight against corruption in the country.

[46] However, in 2021, due to Moro's conviction for partiality, famous Lava Jato defendants reaped the fruits of the decisions of the Federal Supreme Court that relaxed the jurisprudence that had taken politicians, businessmen and bribery operators to jail.

[47] In 2017, Moro sentenced former Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, to 9 and a half years in jail, on the charges of money laundering and passive corruption.

[41] The sentencing caused an uproar in Brazil at that time, with many widely supporting and saluting the judge for his decision, with others claiming he was getting ahead of himself.

However, right after the 2018 elections, rumors started to circulate that the president-elect, Jair Bolsonaro, was considering nominating Moro to head the Ministry of Justice.

[56] On 12 May 2019, president Bolsonaro publicly expressed the intention of nominating Moro to the Supreme Federal Court, replacing Justice Celso de Mello, who would retire in 2020.

[62] However, he actually started his political career in November 2018, when he accepted the invitation of President Jair Bolsonaro to be the head of the Ministry of Justice and Public Security.

He joined the political party Podemos (PODE) on November 10, 2021[63] and confirmed that he was building his government project, as a pre-candidate for the Brazilian presidency.

[66] His popularity has faded, due to his controversial decision to join the Bolsonaro cabinet, and of political bias and judicial overreach that tainted the legacy of the “Car Wash” investigation.

Justice Celso de Mello has officially accused Moro of condoning a "nosy police state" and acting as an "investigative judge".

In his dissenting opinion he wrote that they are "unacceptable behaviors in which resistance or nonconformity of the magistrate is envisaged, when contradicted by decision of superior instance".

[73] The speed with which Moro has treated specific actions that involve figures from the Brazilian left and his courteous relationship with members of the former opposition, some of which were under investigation themselves, has been criticized by Brazilian jurists[74] and left-wing activists and politicians, who accuse Moro of being part of a lawfare strategy[75] in order to ostracize PT and bring PSDB to power.

[89][90][91] On 9 June 2019, the online newspaper The Intercept published leaked Telegram messages between Moro and the Operation Car Wash lead prosecutor Deltan Dallagnol, in which Moro allegedly sent advice and instructions to the prosecutor in order to interfere in the investigation that ultimately led to the trial and imprisonment of former president Lula da Silva.

[93] On June 12, Brazilian conservative magazine Veja published a report accusing Moro of “illegally” steering prosecutors as they worked to convict Brazilian politicians and "overstepping his role as judge," claiming that its journalists had spent a fortnight pouring over nearly 650,000 leaked messages between officials involved in the investigation, and concluded the former judge was guilty of serious “irregularities.” Following the report, Moro released a statement condemning “the distorted and sensationalist diffusion of supposed messages obtained by criminal means.”[95][96] According to the news outlets The Intercept and the AP, the FBI requested case documents about Lula's investigation before the case became public, and Moro allegedly authorized the information to be sent to the Justice Department through unofficial channels.

[97] On August 20, 2019, Rep. Johnson and his colleagues sent a letter to then Attorney General William Barr stating that The Intercept published leaked communications between Judge Moro and senior prosecutors that "reveal close collaboration" and "reports of collusive actions aimed at building a case against former president Lula”.

[102] In July, 2020, 77 members of Congress sent a letter to their U.S. counterparts, requesting that the Americans “adopt the appropriate legislative measures” and “hold those responsible agents and officials accountable.”[103] In July 2021, the Congressman Hank Johnson requested from Attorney General, Merrick Garland to inform the Congress what was the role of the DOJ agents in the Car Wash operation and what role DOJ played in the political persecution of Lula da Silva.

[108] Sergio Moro is portrayed by Marcelo Serrado in the 2017 Brazilian film Polícia Federal: A Lei É para Todos.