Emirates call Bolsonaro’s former defense secretary – 03/28/2023 – Politics

With an eye on the Brazilian defense market, the United Arab Emirates invited a high authority from the Ministry of Defense in the government of Jair Bolsonaro (PL) to direct the branch of the state-owned company in the sector in the country.

As Secretary of Defense Products, Marcos Degaut made several trips to Arab countries and others, with a view to opening markets for Brazilian companies. In May of last year, he was with his then-presidential son Eduardo Bolsonaro at a meeting at the Edge Group, in Abu Dhabi.

The emirati conglomerate brings together 25 companies from different areas and will now arrive in Brazil. As Degaut told the Sheethe has not yet taken office because the Edge Group is in the process of setting up in the country.

Asked about the fact that he left a strategic position in Defense and is now going to work for a potential client of the federal government, he rules out a conflict of interest. “That’s what quarantine is for. And Seprod [Secretaria de Produtos de Defesa] does not make acquisitions, it works on formulating industry promotion”, he says.

Degaut left the government in August 2022, and his six-month quarantine period has now been completed. He was known in the Itamaraty as Bolsonaro’s man in the Emirates, one of the countries closest to the then presidential clan — the nebulous visits of Eduardo, federal deputy for the PL-SP, to Dubai and Abu Dhabi became famous.

On April 20 last year, the president sent a message to the Senate indicating Degaut to be the new Brazilian ambassador to the Arab country. The top of the House stopped the nomination, in an episode never fully clarified that two presidents of important defense companies attribute to political feuds, praising the technical qualifications of the former secretary in the area.

“I withdrew from the nomination in August on health grounds,” Degaut said. At the same time, four months after the Senate postponed considering his name, he left the government.

“I never asked to be nominated. I think that the national industry saw the Emirates as a big bet, resented something more proactive, and made the nomination to the president,” he stated. Degaut also denies being close to the former chief’s children. “I am not, nor have I ever been, Eduardo’s friend. He was very cordial in the meetings we participated in”, he said.

One of the companies controlled by the Edge Group is Beacon Red, formerly known as Dark Matters, the star of conspiracy theories involving cybersecurity companies used by governments to spy on their citizens.

It had been founded in 2014 by Faisal Al Bannai, president of Edge since the foundation of the state-owned company in 2019. The company rejects accusations of wrongdoing with the technological capabilities it dominates.

Putting together the Bolsonaro surname and meeting with a firm with that profile fueled obvious rumours, even more so at the height of the campaign by the president and his allies against the electronic voting system in Brazil. None of them have been proven.

According to Degaut, in the meetings he had with the Edge Group, activities of Beacon Red “were never discussed with the Ministry of Defense”.

The topic, however, remains on the agenda. The first priority of the emirati group in Brazil will be to negotiate a partnership with Kryptus, the main Brazilian cybersecurity company, which takes care of certification of electronic voting machines and cryptography for the Armed Forces and Abin, including banks, public agencies and private clients.

“There are beginnings of talks,” Degaut said. “Kryptus exports Brazilian technology to more than 20 countries and for that it actively seeks and maintains partnerships with the main global companies, both for business in the enterprise segment [soluções de alta complexidade a pedido do cliente] as in the government and defense segment”, said the company’s president, Roberto Gallo.

“Currently, Kryptus does not have a partnership with the Edge Group and does not confirm conversations in this regard”, he added. In 2020, the company had already received a contribution of BRL 20 million coordinated by Embraer Defense.

On market rumors that Edge could be interested in the battered Avibrás, a manufacturer of missiles and weapons systems from São Paulo that is in judicial recovery, Degaut is ambiguous. “There is nothing about Avibrás, but that doesn’t prevent it from happening,” he said.

The future executive, who was a federal servant for 32 years and worked in the Presidencies of Fernando Henrique Cardoso (PSDB) and Michel Temer (MDB), says that his priority is to train Brazilian companies with export potential, not to buy them.

“I understand that companies like Kryptus have to remain strategic, and by law that means 2/3 national ownership,” he said. He said he had received proposals “from companies from different countries that I visited, American, Italian, from Egypt”, but that all had a “predatory” bias towards the national industry.

The Emirates, he says, no. The plan is to work with defense companies from several countries to triple the company’s global revenue, which was US$ 7 billion in 2021 [R$ 40,4 bilhões já corrigidos, no câmbio de hoje]by 2025. “Edge wants to be among the five largest companies in the sector in the world,” he said.

“Here in Brazil, we need to overcome the funding bottleneck. It is very difficult to compete with the American, the Chinese, the European”, he said, saying that the Edge could bring the abundant emirati money to national partners who have something to give in return, as specific technologies.