The chain of events that ended with President Rousseff's impeachment was begun by the English lawyer Jonathan David Taylor. In 2013 Taylor blew the whistle on SBM Offshore NV, the Dutch company responsible for paying hundreds of millions of dollars to senior Petrobras personnel in bribes to win offshore oil and gas-related contracts, while Rousseff chaired the national oil and gas company. Later SBM illicitly funded her Workers Party during Rousseff's first presidential election. The scandal gave rise to Operation Car Wash, which in turn led to Rousseff's popularity falling to 5% in the polls as the enormity of the levels of corruption at the organisations she headed came to light. In 2015, millions of Brazilians protested in over fifty cities and her downfall became an inevitability. Taylor's revelations would later lead to Rousseff's predecessor, President Lula, being jailed for corruption.