Brazilian police accuse Bolsonaro of embezzling Saudi jewels

Brazil’s federal police have recommended criminal charges against former President Jair Bolsonaro for a scheme to embezzle jewelry he received as gifts from foreign leaders while he was president, posing an additional legal challenge to Mr. Bolsonaro, according to two people close to the investigation.

Federal police accused Mr. Bolsonaro and 10 of his allies of trying to keep and sell expensive gifts he received from foreign governments, said the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe sealed records. Police are seeking money laundering and criminal association charges against Mr. Bolsonaro and some of his allies, including former aides.

In one case, Bolsonaro and his team tried to hide $1 million worth of diamond jewelry that the former president had received from the Saudi government, previous investigative documents show.

In another attempt, Mr. Bolsonaro’s team tried unsuccessfully to sell an 18-karat gold set belonging to the Saudis for $50,000 at a Manhattan auction house during a Valentine’s Day sale last year, the documents show. In a third attempt, they sold two luxury watches at a Pennsylvania mall for $68,000 and gave some of the money to Mr. Bolsonaro, the documents show.

While Brazilian police call such recommended charges “indictments” in Portuguese, Mr. Bolsonaro has not been charged. The country’s top federal prosecutor must now decide whether to charge Mr. Bolsonaro and force him to stand trial. That prosecutor and Brazil’s Supreme Court said they had not received the police recommendations as of Thursday night.

The case is part of a growing legal dilemma for Brazil’s former president, who left office only 18 months ago.

In March, federal police recommended charging Bolsonaro with a plan to falsify his Covid-19 vaccination records. Federal prosecutors have not yet charged him.

In February, police confiscated his passport and ordered him to remain in Brazil while they investigated his role in what authorities called a conspiracy to stay in power after he lost the 2022 election. Days later, Bolsonaro spent two nights at the Hungarian embassy in Brazil’s capital in an attempt to seek asylum, according to security camera footage obtained by The New York Times.

If convicted in either case, the former president could face a prison sentence. Legal experts say the coup charges are the most likely to result in a prison sentence if convicted, while convictions in the jewelry or vaccine card cases could result in lighter sentences. Former presidents are not immune from prosecution in Brazil.

Mr. Bolsonaro denies the charges and calls the investigation political persecution. He and his lawyer have argued that the gifts were legally his. “All former presidents had problems” with foreign gifts, Mr. Bolsonaro told the Brazilian newspaper Estadão last year. “The law is confusing.”

His lawyer declined to comment because he had not yet seen the documents recommending the charges.

Bolsonaro has long been compared to former President Donald J. Trump. While the two men share a combative political style and far-right politics, they have also increasingly faced similar legal challenges.

Mr. Trump, who has been convicted in one case and indicted in three others, has also been accused of mishandling foreign gifts he received as president. House Democrats accused the Trump White House of failing to properly document more than 100 foreign gifts worth more than $250,000. Nearly all of those gifts have now been accounted for.

In Brazil, the jewelry scandal began in 2021 when a Brazilian government official was caught returning from an official visit to Saudi Arabia with about $1 million worth of undeclared diamond jewelry. The official told authorities the items were a gift from Saudi officials to Mr. Bolsonaro and his wife, Michelle.

In June 2022, Mr. Bolsonaro’s personal assistant, Lt. Col. Mauro Cid, sold a diamond Rolex watch and a Patek Philippe watch to a jewelry store in the Willow Grove Park mall in Pennsylvania, according to investigative documents. Police believe one watch was a gift from Saudi Arabia and the other a gift from Bahrain.

The police advised that charges be filed against Mr. Cid in that case. Mr. Cid had previously signed a plea agreement with the authorities. His lawyer has said that Mr Cid was following Mr Bolsonaro’s orders, which Mr Bolsonaro denies.

Brazilian law allows presidents to keep certain gifts if they are personal, but they cannot be of great value, according to Bruno Dantas, the head of Brazil’s watchdog court, the federal government’s effective accountant. “If it’s a diamond necklace with the president’s name on it, he can’t have it,” Mr. Dantas told The Times last year.

In determining what belongs to the president and what to the state, a government-appointed panel sometimes weighs in. That panel ruled that at least some of the jewelry Bolsonaro’s associates wanted to sell was of a personal nature.

Paulo Cunha Bueno, Mr Bolsonaro’s lawyer, has said this means the jewelry legally belongs to Mr Bolsonaro. “He can sell it,” Mr Cunha Bueno told The Times last year. “And when he dies, the assets go to his heirs.”

The head of the government-appointed panel was among those accused by police of criminal involvement. Brazil’s Supreme Court judge overseeing the investigation had previously said there was evidence suggesting Bolsonaro had ordered the panel to rule that the jewelry was his property.

Police have said other evidence shows Bolsonaro and his allies tried to conceal their plan. For example, they worked primarily with cash. In a WhatsApp conversation, Cid told a colleague that his father had $25,000 for the former president. “He was going to deliver it by hand,” he said. “The less movement in the account, the better, right?”

After Dantas ordered Bolsonaro to return the jewelry last year by the supervisory court, Frederick Wassef, Bolsonaro’s former lawyer, flew to Pennsylvania and bought back the Saudi Rolex for $49,000, police said.

Mr. Wassef later denied this to the Brazilian press. “I have never seen that watch,” he told Brazilian news site G1 last year. “I challenge you to prove it.”

News sites then the receipt was published with his name on it.

Police this week recommended that Mr Wassef also be charged with money laundering and criminal involvement.

Mr. Wassef said this week that Mr. Bolsonaro had not asked him to buy the Rolex. He said he did so of his own accord during a trip to the United States to return it to the federal government, as the courts had requested. “I am doing all of this just to practice law in defense of Jair Bolsonaro,” he said.

Paulo Motoryn contributed to the reporting from Brasília.