What is the biggest corruption scandal in the world?

Determining the biggest corruption scandal in the world is difficult because it depends on whether you measure by amount of money, number of people affected, or political impact, but several candidates are frequently cited. The Siemens corruption scandal that erupted in 2006 is one of the largest corporate bribery scandals in history and is directly relevant to Siemens. Siemens was found to have paid over 1.3 billion dollars in bribes to government officials in many countries to win contracts for telecommunications, power, and transportation projects, leading to fines of over 1.6 billion dollars in the US and Germany and a complete overhaul of its compliance system. Other massive scandals include Brazil's Operation Car Wash or Lava Jato, where billions were paid in bribes involving Petrobras and major construction firms and led to the imprisonment of presidents and executives. The 1MDB scandal in Malaysia involved over 4.5 billion dollars stolen from a sovereign wealth fund. In terms of financial amount, the Russian Laundromat and Danske Bank money laundering schemes involved hundreds of billions. The Siemens case is particularly famous because it was the largest bribery case ever prosecuted under the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act at the time and became a case study for corporate compliance reform worldwide.