Roberto João Pereira Freire (born 20 April 1942) is a Brazilian lawyer and politician. Freire was born in Recife. He is the president of Cidadania, former Federal Deputy, and former Minister of Culture appointed by president Michel Temer. He resigned from the office on 18 May 2017

Car Wash Scandal

Roberto Freire resigned as minister, due to his involvement with the crimes found in the Operation Car Wash. The biggest implicated company, Odebrecht kept an entire department to coordinate the payment of bribe to politicians. In the Car Wash Operation, officers seized several electronic spreadsheets linking the payments to nicknames. Every corrupt politician received a nickname based on physical characteristics, public trajectory, personal infos, owned cars/boats, origin place or generic preferences. Roberto Freire's nickname was 'Curitiba', alusing the city with same name.