Bolsonaro and allies testify under pressure to the PF about jewelry – 08/30/2023 – Politics

The Federal Police hears at the same time, this Thursday (31), Jair Bolsonaro (PL), former first lady Michelle Bolsonaro, three trusted advisors, a general and two lawyers of the former president.

In addition to the Bolsonaro couple, Mauro Cid and his father, reserve general Mauro Lourena Cid, advisors Osmar Crivelatti and Marcelo Câmara, and lawyers Frederick Wassef and Fabio Wajngarten testify simultaneously.

All are cited in the investigation within the inquiry of the digital militias into the alleged diversion, sale, repurchase and return of high-value gifts received by Bolsonaro from foreign authorities.

Simultaneous testimonies have been justified to avoid creating a pattern of answers and versions of the investigated. Minister Alexandre de Moraes, of the STF (Federal Supreme Court), even prohibited communication between them as a way to avoid a possible version adjustment.

Among the gifts, there are jewelry and watches sold in the United States, according to the PF. Afterwards, the objects would have been the target of a “rescue operation” orchestrated by Mauro Cid and people close to the former president.

Bolsonaro is the main target of the investigation – the jewelry case puts the former president at the scene of an alleged crime of embezzlement of public money for the first time.

The use of a Brazilian Air Force aircraft to take the jewelry and gifts to the United States and the messages indicating the return of money from sales to the former representative’s pocket are the main information revealed by the investigators so far.

Bolsonaro should be asked about the extent to which he participated in the operation and how much he profited from the negotiation of jewelry and gifts. The defense has denied the irregularities and made the bank secrecy of the former representative available to the STF after Moraes authorized the collection of data.

One of the arguments used by its defenders is that the gifts were very personal items when received and, therefore, there would be no irregularity in an alleged sale.

For the PF, Bolsonaro used the structure of the federal government to divert high-value gifts and this resulted in illicit enrichment.

Like him, Michelle Bolsonaro also had a request for breach of tax and banking secrecy authorized by Moraes.

The name of the former first lady appears in conversations between Bolsonaro’s advisors in the period between the trip to the US, on December 30, 2022, until the rescue operation was carried out, in March —after the case of the jewels seized at the airport of Guarulhos take the news.

Messages show that Cid and Marcelo Câmara mention in a conversation that a gift from “Dona Michelle” had disappeared, showing concern during the attempt to recover the jewels.

Cid, as well as in the suspicious transactions in the office of the Presidency, which also has Michelle as a target, is the main character of the investigated plot.

It is the conversations found on his cell phone that guided the PF to the details of the attempt to sell and recover the gifts – as well as the vaccination card fraud and other ongoing investigations.

The former head of Bolsonaro’s Ajudância de Ordens is under arrest and, according to his lawyer, may confess to having sold and recovered the gifts at the request of the former president. He appears at every moment of the survey —from the departure of the gifts from Brazil, the arrival in the US and transfer to stores and, after the appearance of the subject in the media, the operation to rescue them.

In addition to confirming at the behest of those who organized the sale and repurchase negotiations, Cid will be able to indicate the amount collected in the negotiations and where that money ended up.

The main indication cited by Moraes to indicate Bolsonaro’s possible enrichment with the sale of gifts is a conversation between the lieutenant colonel and his father, Lourena Cid.

The PF describes in the search request against the general an audio in which Cid reports, on January 18, the existence of US$ 25 thousand (about R$ 122 thousand) in possession of his father, “possibly belonging to Jair Bolsonaro” .

Cid’s companions in the Ajudância de Ordens, Osmar Crivelatti and Marcelo Câmara, and Bolsonaro’s lawyers, Frederick Wassef and Fabio Wajngarten, appear in the messages during the rescue operation detailed by the PF in its report.

About them, it is also interesting for the investigators to know at the behest of whom they acted to try to recover the gifts.

Wassef, responsible for repurchasing and bringing the Rolex Day-Date to Brazil, said he was unaware of the topic at first, but days later he changed the version and assumed he had bought the watch. He exempted Bolsonaro and Cid from participating in the facts.

Wajngarten, who was Bolsonaro’s Secretary of Communication, does not appear acting directly, but in messages demanding that the former president anticipate the decision of the TCU (Court of Audit of the Union) and deliver the gifts received.

The former head of Secom also criticizes the actions of Wassef and Câmara in the messages to recover and return the goods requested by the Court.