With a pile of evidence collated, the Federal Police (FP) has accused the former president of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, in an investigation into an alleged network illegally trading the jewellery given by foreign authorities during his time in government (2019-2022). He could go to prison.
Osvaldo Cardosa
In addition to the far-right politician, a further 11 people have been accused in this case, among them his former aide, Lieutenant Colonel Mauro Cid, and the president’s former press secretary, Fabio Wajngarten.
Bolsonaro is charged with three crimes: criminal organisation (with sentences of 1-3 years in prison), money laundering (from 3-10 years) and embezzlement (appropriation of public property), with custodial sentences of 2-12 years.
According to the FP, the former president embezzled more than $1.2 million in gifts received during his time in power.
This conclusion is stated in the report of the inquiry that discovered the existence of a criminal gang, whose objective was specifically to misdirect and sell valuable objects (sculptures, jewellery and watches) received by the former leader as official presents.
“It was also identified that the proceeds of these sales were converted into cash and entered the personal assets of the former president of the Republic,” says the police report.
It details that the operations were carried out through intermediaries and without using the formal banking system, “with the intention of hiding the original source and ownership of the goods.”
The search was carried out in March 2023, after it came out about the Bolsonaro government’s attempts to rescue jewellery that had ended up being detained at the Receita Federal (the Brazilian governing body for taxes and customs control), at Guarulhos International Airport, in Sao Paulo.
Faced with this situation, the previous head of state spurred on at least 15 public servants to try to free those items.
Orchestrated by the then Revenue Secretary of the Receita Federal, Júlio César Vieira, the operation to recover the objects took place in the final days of Bolsonaro’s term in office, which ended on 31 December 2022. Heard in the Supreme Federal Court (SFC), the FP report revealed that, over approximately two weeks, he had mobilised seven senior post-holders in the Ministry of Finance, four of the president’s aides, three members of the Assistant Cabinet of Historical Documentation and one official from the General Secretariat of the Presidency.
All of them attempted to deliver the jewellery given to them on their trips abroad to the former head of state, but they were held up at customs.
At one point, Vieira ordered a subordinate to: “Release everyone to work for us so that people can manage to get this out of there and have that done by tomorrow at five in the evening.”
Together with Bolsonaro and the other 10 followers, Vieira was accused “of attempting to divert a set of women’s jewellery made of white gold, consisting of a necklace, a pair of earrings, a ring, a Chopard branded wristwatch and a sculpture of a golden horse.”
The pieces were given by Saudi Arabian authorities to Bento Albuquerque, the then Minister of Mines and Energy, who represented Bolsonaro on the trip to that country in October 2021.
For the investigators, it was a “desperate” operation “to some extent, trying to extract women’s jewellery detained by the Receita Federal, during working time to then dispatch them on the presidential plane, which would take off on 30 December 2022, bound for the United States.”
Police experts suspect that all this coordination to release the jewellery from customs before Bolsonaro’s trip on the presidential flight had just one intention: to sell them in the country to the north, along with other high-value gifts received by the ex-paratrooper.
Despite political and judicial circles expecting an immediate decision on the case, the Attorney General’s Office is evaluating the possibility of bringing together all the actions carried out by the FP against Bolsonaro into one single complaint to be presented to the SFC, according to a recent report from the television station, CNN Brasil. For the moment, Bolsonaro faces accusations of fraud relating to the anti-Covid 19 vaccination card, an investigation that is still undertaking complementary procedures, and more recently for a case of jewellery theft from the Presidency.
Likewise, the preparation of a report by the FP on the alleged participation of the former president in the attempted coup d’état on 8 January 2023, is underway in Brasilia. PL
(Translated by Donna Davison. Email: donna_davison@hotmail.com) – Photos: Pixabay
.jpg)
