Brazil’s federal police are recommending criminal charges against former President Jair Bolsonaro for allegedly embezzling jewelry given by foreign leaders while he was president, two people familiar with the matter said. Here comes another major legal challenge.
Federal police accuse Bolsonaro and 10 of his allies of trying to keep and sell expensive gifts he received from foreign governments, the people familiar with the matter said on condition of anonymity, describing sealed case files. Police are seeking money laundering and criminal gang charges against Bolsonaro and some of his allies, including former aides.
In one case, Bolsonaro and his team tried to hide $1 million worth of diamond jewelry the former president received from the Saudi Arabian government, according to past investigative documents.
Documents show that during Valentine’s Day last year, Bolsonaro’s team tried and failed to sell a set of 18-karat gold from Saudi Arabia at a Manhattan auction house for $50,000. On a third occasion, they sold two luxury watches for $68,000 at a shopping mall in Pennsylvania and handed some of the cash to Bolsonaro, documents show.
Bolsonaro has not yet been charged, although Brazilian police refer to such proposed charges as an “indictment” in Portuguese. The country’s top federal prosecutor must now decide whether to prosecute Bolsonaro and force him to stand trial. The prosecutor and Brazil’s Supreme Court said they had not received police advice as of Thursday evening.
The case is part of a growing legal crisis facing Brazil’s former president just 18 months after leaving office.
In March, federal police recommended charging Bolsonaro with falsifying Covid-19 vaccination records, but federal prosecutors have yet to charge him.
In February, police seized his passport and ordered him to stay in Brazil as authorities investigated his role in a conspiracy to retain power after losing elections in 2022. Days later, Bolsonaro spent two nights at the Hungarian embassy in the Brazilian capital, apparently seeking asylum, according to surveillance footage obtained by The New York Times.
The former president could face prison time if he is convicted in any of the cases. Legal experts believe coup plot charges are most likely to result in jail time if convicted, while convictions in jewelry or vaccine card cases could lead to lighter sentences. Brazil’s former president is not immune from prosecution.
Bolsonaro has denied the accusations and called the investigation a political witch hunt. He and his lawyers argued that the gifts were legally his property. Bolsonaro told Brazilian newspaper Estadão last year that “all former presidents have had problems with foreign gifts”. “The law is confusing.”
His attorney declined to comment because he has not yet seen the documents recommending charges.
Bolsonaro has long been keen to compare himself to former President Donald J. Trump, and while the two share a combative political style and far-right politics, they also increasingly face similar challenges. legal challenge.
Trump has been convicted in one case and indicted in three others, and he has also been accused of mishandling foreign gifts he received as president. House Democrats have accused the Trump administration of failing to properly record more than 100 foreign gifts worth more than $250,000. Nearly all of those gifts have now been accounted for.
In Brazil, the jewelry case began in 2021, when a Brazilian government official was caught with approximately $1 million worth of undeclared diamond jewelry while returning from an official visit to Saudi Arabia. The items were gifts from Saudi officials to Mr. Bolsonaro and his wife, Michelle, the official told authorities.
Investigation documents show that in June 2022, Bolsonaro’s personal assistant Lieutenant Colonel Mauro Cid sold a diamond Rolex watch and a Patek Philippe watch to a jewelry store in Willow Grove Park Mall in Pennsylvania. Police believe one of the watches was a gift from Saudi Arabia and the other from Bahrain.
Police recommended that Mr Cid be charged in this case. Mr. West had previously signed a plea agreement with authorities. His lawyers said West Germany was following orders from Mr Bolsonaro, but Mr Bolsonaro denies this.
Bruno Dantas, president of Brazil’s supervisory court and the federal government’s effective auditor general, said Brazilian law allows the president to keep some personal gifts, but the value of those gifts should not be high. “If this were a diamond necklace with the president’s name on it, he wouldn’t have it,” Mr. Dantas told The Times last year.
To decide what is presidential property and what belongs to the state, government-appointed panels sometimes step in.
Mr. Bolsonaro’s lawyer, Paulo Cunha Bueno, said that meant the jewelry legally belonged to Mr. Bolsonaro. “He could sell them,” Mr. Cunha Bueno told The Times last year. “If he dies, the assets go to his heirs.”
The government-appointed leader of the team is among those charged by police with criminal suspicion. Brazil’s Supreme Court judge overseeing the investigation has previously said some evidence showed Bolsonaro ordered the panel to rule that the jewelry was his property.
Police said other evidence showed Bolsonaro and his allies were trying to conceal their plans. For example, they operate primarily in cash. In a WhatsApp exchange, Sid told a colleague that his father donated $25,000 to the former president. “He’ll deliver it himself,” he said. “The fewer changes in the account, the better, right?”
After Dantas, who oversees the courts, ordered Bolsonaro to return the jewelry last year, Bolsonaro’s former lawyer Frederic Wassef flew to Pennsylvania and repurchased the Saudi Arabian jewelry for $49,000, police said. Rolex Watches.
Wassef later denied the claim to Brazilian media. “I have never seen that watch,” he told Brazilian news site G1 last year. “I dare you to prove it.”
The news website later published the receipt with his name on it.
Police this week recommended money laundering and criminal gang charges be brought against Mr Wassef.
Vassev said this week that Bolsonaro did not ask him to buy a Rolex watch. He said he did so voluntarily when he traveled to the United States to return it to the federal government, as required by the court. “I went through all this just to defend Jair Bolsonaro,” he said.
Paul Motrin Reporting from Brasilia.
