Bolsonaro’s jewelry: PF talks about ‘rescue operation’ in the US – 08/11/2023 – Politics

The Federal Police classified as a “rescue operation” the secret movement of some of the main assistants of former president Jair Bolsonaro (PL) to recover in the United States jewelry that had been sold, but that for Brazilian authorities belong to public property.

On March 15, the TCU (Tribunal de Contas da União) had determined that the material be returned to the Brazilian government.

Participating in the movement, according to the PF, were army lieutenant colonel and former head of Bolsonaro’s aides, Mauro Cid, his advisor Marcelo Câmara, second lieutenant Osmar Crivelatti and lawyer Frederick Wassef.

The investigation shows that they worked together to recover the “White gold kit”, delivered to the former president on his official visit to Saudi Arabia in October 2019 and incorporated into his private collection.

The set consisted of a ring, cufflinks, an Islamic rosary (“masbaha”) and a Rolex watch, produced in white gold and diamonds. The former president’s allies would have divided the operation into two stages, according to the PF.

The Rolex Day-Date watch, sold to Precision Watches, in Pennsylvania, United States, was recovered on March 14 by Wassef. He would have bought back the object.

After the “rescue”, the lawyer would have returned with the asset to Brazil on March 29 and delivered it to Mauro Cid four days later, in São Paulo. The lieutenant colonel then returned to Brasilia on the same date and handed the watch over to Crivelatti.

The PF identified records of interaction between Cid and Wassef to deal with the matter, despite the fact that the former deleted most of the messages.

The agency confirmed that Wassef left on March 11 from Campinas (SP) to Florida.

The rest of the jewelry, according to the PF, was recovered by Cid on March 27, during a trip to Miami.

In June 2022, he had visited the same place to sell (or put up for sale) the rest of the items in the Ouro Branco Kit, according to the PF.

On March 15, Cid also spoke with former Presidential Communications Secretary Fabio Wajngarten about the possibility of TCU asking for the return of the material.

Wajngarten replied: “They really will. That’s why it was much better for us to anticipate.” Then, showing annoyance, he criticizes Bolsonaro’s advisor and lawyer: “But the genius of [Marcelo] Camera + Fred [Wassef] pollute everything”.

The police also found messages that showed Cid and Marcelo Camara’s nervousness when trying to retrieve the kit.

The dialogue exchanged on March 26, in which Cid claims not to be confident, caught the attention of the police. In response, Camara says: “Believe soldier”. A day later, Cid forwards the message to Crivelatti “Resolved!”, to which he replies: “Excellent”; “Yoooooo”.

After that, Cid requests documents that would prove the registration of the assets in the former president’s private collection to present them in case he was stopped in any inspection at the airport.

After recovering the goods, according to the PF, he immediately returned to Brazil, arriving in the morning of March 28 in Brasília, when he also passed the material on to Crivelatti.

According to the police, “there is robust evidence in the sense that the lost goods were the object of a true rescue operation, with the aim of hiding the fact that they had been alienated”.

“It should be noted that the entire operation was carried out in a concealed manner, a fact that allowed those investigated to return the goods without revealing that all the material was outside the country, contrary to the statements made,” said the agency.

The police also reported that the covert operation meant that, until now, the Brazilian authorities had no knowledge that the goods were sold abroad, “disregarding legal regulations, with the aim of illicitly enriching former President Jair Bolsonaro, and subsequently recovered to be returned to the Brazilian state”.

The set was returned on April 4 at a Caixa Econômica Federal branch in Brasília, as determined by the TCU.

At the time, Wajngarten said, on a social network, that the “delivery reiterates the commitment of President Bolsonaro’s defense to return all the gifts that the TCU requests, complying with the guidance of the former president of the country, who always respected the legislation in force. about the subject”.

The president of the TCU, Minister Bruno Dantas, stated that Bolsonaro could not keep the jewelry and that, for a gift to be incorporated into the private assets of a president, it should be classified as a very personal item and be of low value.

Police found no evidence that a second watch, also sold to the store in Pennsylvania on June 13, 2022, was recovered by investigators.

Previously, a set of men’s items from the Chopard brand would have been rescued from a store in New York and sent, through the freight service, to an address in the city of Orlando, where the former president was staying.

Then, the kit was transported to Brazil and delivered on March 24 at the Caixa branch in Brasília.

OTHER SIDE

Bolsonaro’s defense stated that the former president makes his banking transactions available to the authorities and that he “never appropriated or embezzled any public property”.

He also said, in a note, that he “voluntarily” asked the TCU in March of this year to deliver jewelry received “until the final decision on his treatment, which in fact was done”.

When contacted, Mauro Cid’s lawyer, Bernardo Fenelon, said in a statement that he had not yet had access to the records of the investigation that led to the searches and seizures. “For that reason, we are unable to make any comment,” he said.

Fabio Wajngarten said on a social network that in the dialogue held with Mauro Cid, reported by the Federal Police, he referred to “the voluntary delivery of the jewels to the Federal Court of Accounts”.

“When I said that the delivery of the objects should be ‘anticipated’, I was referring to an advance shipment to the Court, before a formal request from the TCU, which, incidentally, ended up happening.”

Frederick Wassef has yet to comment on the matter.