Hours earlier, police officers raided the homes and offices of several people allegedly involved in the case, including a four-star general. Bolsonaro has denied acting illegally in relation to the gifts.
A Federal Police agent indicated that the agency is requesting authorization to have access to Bolsonaro’s banking and financial information. The agent, who spoke on condition of anonymity to comment on the investigation, said the Federal Police had requested help from the FBI.
Bolsonaro’s lawyers said in a statement that he will authorize Brazil’s judiciary to have access to his bank records.
“President Bolsonaro has never misappropriated or misplaced any public asset,” they stated.
The case adds to the judicial dangers Bolsonaro faces for activities carried out while he was president. He is also being investigated in connection with riots by his supporters in the country’s capital after he left office, as well as actions during the presidential election campaign he lost late last year.
Brazil requires its citizens arriving by plane from abroad to declare assets valued at more than $1,000 and pay a tax equivalent to 50% of their value for any amount that exceeds that exemption. The jewelry would have been tax-free as it was a gift from Saudi Arabia to Brazil, but Bolsonaro could not keep it.
“The amounts obtained from these sales were transformed into cash and then became personal assets of the former president through intermediaries, and without entering the formal banking system,” the Federal Police alleges, according to an order issued by the judge. of the Federal Supreme Court Alexandre de Moraes.
The judge indicated that the police believe that the strategy of the suspects was “to hide the origin, location and ownership of these amounts.”
According to the investigation, in June 2022, Lieutenant Colonel Mauro Cid, a Bolsonaro adviser, sold a Rolex watch and a Patek Philippe watch that the Saudi Arabian government gave away in 2019 to a store in the United States, obtaining a total of 68,000 in exchange. dollars, the judge stated in his order. It is presumed that the money was transferred the same day to the bank account of Cid’s father.
In March 2023, when the investigations were already underway and the Federal Police asked Bolsonaro to return two sets of jewelry that had been gifts, his lawyer, Frederick Wassef, repurchased the Rolex watch in Miami and handed it over to the Brazilian authorities. in April, according to the order.
Both Wassef and Cid’s father were the targets of search and seizure warrants issued on Friday, along with a close Bolsonaro adviser responsible for returning the jewelry sets.
FOUNTAIN: Associated Press
