It is true that Jair Bolsonaro has not moved from his place of voluntary exile in Florida since his arrival on December 30, two days before the handover of power from his successor to the Brazilian presidency, Lula. But he does not abandon the political-judicial news of his country.
Already prosecuted for his hypothetical role in the coup attempt led on January 8 by his supporters against the institutions in Brasilia, the former head of the Executive faces a new suspicion, according to what the Brasilia correspondent told us this Wednesday. World. The national press accuses him of having tried to bring back to Brazil sumptuous jewels destined for him – as well as his wife – Mohamed ben Salman, crown prince of Saudi Arabia. And this, behind the backs of the customs officials. Then, the attempt having failed, of having pressured them (still in vain) to get the gift back.
Worse yet, observers and actors in Brazilian public life wonder if Saudi generosity has not influenced the nation’s economic and foreign policy.
The seized jewels
Such is, in a few lines, the content of the matter revealed on March 3 by the newspaper state. However, it dates from October 2021.
The Minister of Mines and Energy -also an admiral of the Brazilian fleet-, Bento Albuquerque, was then sent to Riyadh to represent Brazil at the “Green Middle East” summit, whose vast program was to publicize the ecological measures deployed by the Kingdom .
The Admiral returns on October 26 to the Garulhos International Airport in Sao Paulo. She carries in her bag a box full of diamonds. There is a pair of earrings, a necklace, a ring. Lack of luck for the fraudster: customs officers take care of everything. This poses an immediate problem as any property brought in from abroad whose value exceeds $1,000 (or €930) must be declared upstream. Therefore, it would have been necessary to declare the box. And rightly so: it amounts to three million euros, reports The world. Therefore, the jewelry, of the Chopard brand, is seized.
The purpose of this desire for dissimulation is obvious. It was up to Jair Bolsonaro to avoid paying half the value of the product in customs duties, or having to entrust it to the Public Treasury.
recovery attempts
In any case, the probity of the customs officers aroused the ire of the then president of Brazil. His envoys even traveled to the airport several times during the following months – until three days before the expiration of his mandate – to soften them up and recover the grisbi. These refuse.
Jair Bolsonaro, for his part, was in possession of a (small) consolation prize, as the Brazilian press also discovered. He had other jewels, valued this time at 70,000 euros, and which in the meantime had gone to ace. Faced with media anger and legal threats, he finally returned them.
Going from suspicion to certainty
This restitution does not extinguish the action of justice. The federal police, the Court of Accounts and the prosecutor’s office took charge of the file. Jair Bolsonaro is even the subject of two separate investigations, TF1 specifies here. Parliamentarians are pushing for a commission of inquiry to be opened.
In Brazil, we are also skeptical about the disinterest of such gifts from the Saudi dynasty. Especially given the cordiality of Jair Bolsonaro towards Mohamed Ben Salmane while the latter was cornered on the international scene by the human rights violations committed by the monarchy and the murder of the journalist Jamal Kashoggi.
Doubt feeds on more tangible elements. The tripling of imports from Saudi Arabia between 2019 and 2022 -which reached 5,000 million euros- and the sale at a ridiculous price by Petrobras of a refinery to an investment fund in Dubai, an emirate close to Saudi Arabia and not just geographically. So many transactions that the prince’s gifts can weigh the eyes down, and give them an air of backchich. The worldwho listed these deals, quotes a senior official familiar with the matter: “Three million euros is a totally unusual amount for a gift between heads of state.”
It is now up to the courts to remove suspicions to identify certain certainties.
Source: BFM TV
