Denise Frossard

Who is Denise Frossard?

Denise Frossard Loschi is a judge and politician from Brazil. She studied law and served as a magistrate in Rio de Janeiro. She has been a law professor at the Getúlio Vargas Foundation. When she retired she started working for Transparency International.

She was the trial judge who on May 14, 1993, convicted 14 notorious racketeers who control the lucrative Jogo do Bicho in Rio de Janeiro. The so-called bicheiros were a notorious source of corruption of police officers, politicians, part of the media and even social organisations such as the samba schools, that organise Rio’s world-famous Carnival parades, a huge source of tourist income to both the city and the state. Frossard sentenced them to six years' imprisonment. The sentence recognized the existence of a mafia-type organization in Brazil for the first time. Editorial pages of Brazilian newspapers praised Frossard’s courage to take on the illegal lottery bosses.

"The animal game is a deeply embedded cultural phenomenon with a certain romantic aura, and thus hard to eradicate," according to Frossard.