How Bolsonaro will defend himself in the case of jewelry seized by the Revenue

The revelation that the Federal Revenue seized a set of jewels, valued at BRL 16.5 million and given as a gift to Jair Bolsonaro (PL) by Saudi Arabia, in 2021, has the potential to further complicate the situation of the former president. in justice. He should be investigated for allegedly committing the crimes of embezzlement, embezzlement and money laundering.

In the United States since last year, Bolsonaro had not yet appointed lawyers to defend him in the investigation until this Monday (6). His line of defense, however, was anticipated by former Communications Secretary Fábio Wajngarten, who released official documents on social networks that show an attempt by the government to regularize the entry of jewelry.

The crimes mentioned above were indicated by the Minister of Justice, Flávio Dino, who determined this Monday (6) that the Federal Police investigate the case. “In this case, with injuries to services and interests of the Union, as well as in view of the international repercussions of the itinerary in criminal theory, the investigative action of the Federal Police is imposed”, he wrote in the letter to the agency.

The Federal Revenue, the first to discover the attempt to bring the jewels, and the Federal Public Ministry, which is responsible for a possible criminal complaint, are already working together on the case.

The government of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) is mobilized to politically explore the case. The chief minister of the Presidency’s Communication Secretariat, Paulo Pimenta, said that the jewels were “bribery”. “At the time when the government was negotiating the sale of a refinery to the Arab world, this gift appeared,” he said, in a video spread on social networks. Despite the statements, it will be up to the PF to investigate what actually happened.

Sequence of facts about jewelry

The imbroglio began on October 26, 2021, when a direct assistant of the then Minister of Mines and Energy, Bento Albuquerque, was approached by Federal Revenue inspectors upon landing at Guarulhos Airport. He arrived from Riyadh, where he accompanied the minister to an event on clean energy promoted by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. He was carrying a necklace, a pair of earrings, a ring and a diamond watch by the famous Swiss brand Chopard in his luggage.

The items had not been declared and the auditors informed the advisor and the minister that they would only be released if they paid tax of 50% of the value plus a fine of 25%, which would amount to R$ 12.3 million, or if they tried to incorporate the assets to the acquis of the Presidency.

Questioned by the report, Wajngarten said that Bolsonaro “has never tried to ‘appropriate’ jewelry privately. Neither he nor any member of the Government. What has always been tried was to recover the jewels presented by Saudi Arabia to the Union’s assets”.

To prove this, he presented a series of documents, exchanged between different government agencies in the following days, to show the attempt to release the jewels.

The first is a letter dated October 28, two days after the seizure, from José Roberto Bueno Junior, then Bento Albuquerque’s chief of staff, to Marcelo da Silva Vieira, deputy head of the Historical Documentation sector of the Personal Cabinet of the Presidency. In the document, he said that “it is necessary and essential that the collection be given the appropriate legal destination”, which indicated an attempt to regularize the assets.

The following day, Vieira replied and informed that he was part of the sector that collects, organizes and preserves the objects collected by the president throughout his term. Citing norms that regulate the matter, he informed that the body would analyze the case for “incorporation into the private collection of the President of the Republic or the public collection of the Presidency of the Republic”. That is, the possibility of Bolsonaro keeping the jewels would be analyzed or if it was the case that they became part of the Union’s assets, as a state asset.

For this analysis, gifts should be registered in a specific form, established by the Federal Court of Auditors (TCU) in 2016 – at the time, the supervisory body defined that only “items of a very personal or consumer nature” could be part of the private collection directly by the President of the Republic.

The following week, on November 3, José Roberto Bueno Junior, from the Ministry of Mines and Energy, sent another official letter, this time addressed to the chief of staff of the then Revenue Secretary, to deal with the “release and resulting adequate legal destination” of the gifts received in Saudi Arabia. In this document, he reported that Bento Albuquerque, representing Bolsonaro, attended a lunch with the Minister of Energy of Saudi Arabia.

“Considering the specific condition of the Minister – representative of the President of the Republic; the impossibility of refusing or immediately returning gifts due to current circumstances; and the historical, cultural and artistic values ​​of the offered goods; it is necessary and essential that the collection be given the appropriate legal destination”, said the letter.

He also informed that he had already communicated the Historical Documentation sector, so that it could be analyzed what destination would be given to the jewels.

On November 12, the Federal Revenue responded to the Ministry of Mines and Energy. In the official letter, he forwarded a technical note clarifying the necessary measures with the Revenue to release the gifts, as well as the contact of the customs at the Airport of Guarulhos, where the jewels were retained.

On November 22, Bento Albuquerque sent a letter in English to the Saudi Minister of Energy, Abdulaziz Al Saud, thanking Brazil for participating in the event and extolling the potential for cooperation between the two countries. At the end of the letter, referring to “the gifts kindly offered by the Saudi government”, the Brazilian minister informed that “due to their artistic and material value, they were duly incorporated into the official Brazilian collection, in accordance with national legislation and the code conduct of public administration”.

It is on the basis of these documents that Bolsonaro’s allies want to rid him of the suspicion that he would have tried to take possession of the jewels privately. “All of his actions and those of government agents were intended to recover the public good. There was never any other intention,” says Wajngarten.

For him, whoever is behind the revelation of the case in the press is the current government, of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, interested in using the state machine to persecute a political opponent. “Bolsonaro had 50% of the votes 4 months ago. It is fundamental [para o governo petista] let there be a deconstruction of the greatest leader of the opposition.”

Bolsonaro weighs against the fact that, at the end of last year, near the end of his term, he himself tried, through direct assistants, to release the jewels with the Revenue. More than a year had passed after the first attempts by the government to regulate the entry of gifts into the country.

On December 28, 2022, three days before the end of Bolsonaro’s term, the then secretary of the Federal Revenue, Julio Cesar Viera Gomes, sent a letter to the customs at the airport in São Paulo asking for the release of the jewels. The inspectors replied that they would only release it upon payment of the tax. On the same day, the 28th, the office of former president Jair Bolsonaro sent a letter to the Revenue Service demanding the refund. Again, the request was denied by customs.

On December 29, the former president sent Navy sergeant Jairo Moreira da Silva, one of his assistants, on a Brazilian Air Force (FAB) flight to Guarulhos. The items, however, remained seized by the Revenue.

Questioned in the United States about the case, Bolsonaro said that the jewels would go to the Presidency’s collection, and not for himself. “I was in Brazil when this gift was arranged there in the United Arab Emirates for the Minister of Mines and Energy. His advisor brought it, on a liner plane, and stayed at Customs. I didn’t find out. Two, three days later the presidency notified the customs that it was to go to the collection. So far so good, no big deal. It could, in my opinion, the customs have delivered. It would go into the collection, and be handed over to the first lady. What does the legislation say? She could use it, she couldn’t get rid of it”, he told SBT.

Former first lady Michelle Bolsonaro said, via Twitter, that she did not know about the jewelry. “You mean I have all this and I wasn’t knowing?” she posted on Instagram.