TAINTED-MEAT SCANDAL

BARBECUE, like samba and plea bargains, is big in Brazil. Beef, pork and poultry kicked $145 billion (R1.8 trillion) into its economy in 2015, the last year for which there is complete data, and generated 15 million jobs from the farm to the freezer truck, according to agribusiness think tank Agroconsult. So no wonder President Michel Temer answered the national stink over dicey practices by meatpackers and bent inspectors with some classic native sizzle. On Sunday, he hastily summoned resident ambassadors to a rodizio, a Brazilian-style protein orgy where roving waiters with carving knives ply patrons with braised meat until they can take no more.

Okay, so the beef was mostly imported, and doubtlessly fly-specked to pre-empt diplomatic dyspepsia. And yet the scandal illustrated not just how important agroindustry is to Brazil’s prostrate economy, but also how over-eager sleuths have been driving the increasingly excitable Brazilian political cycle – and occasionally turning facts into fireworks.

The scope of the March 17 police dragnet, codenamed Operation Weak Flesh, was startling: 1 100 federal agents placed