Rising from a shoeshine boy to become Brazil’s first working class president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is a hero to millions of Brazilians and the very face of change in Latin America’s biggest country.
His detention for questioning on Friday in a massive corruption probe may also make him a symbol for many Brazilians of another trend: the end of impunity for the nation’s powerful.
A 70-year-old metalworker and union leader who governed Brazil from 2003 until 2010, Lula presided over an economic boom that raised Brazil’s profile on the world stage, lifted more than 40 million people out of poverty and enabled him to hand-pick a successor candidate, President Dilma Rousseff.
But that has all fizzled, with Brazil in recession, Rousseff scrambling for political survival and millions of Brazilians lamenting a lost chance for their country to enter the ranks of developed nations.
Now, prosecutors allege that Lula’s administration oversaw a huge kickback scheme through Brazil’s state-run oil company Petrobras (PETR4.SA) that provided funding for the campaigns that kept his Workers’ Party in power for the past 13 years.
Brazil Energy Insight 
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