Saudi jewelry? Police search Bolsonaro allies

OThe main targets are Army General Mauro Lourena Cid, father of Jair Bolsonaro’s former aide Mauro Barbosa Cid, lawyer Frederick Wassef and Army Lieutenant Osmar Crivelatti.

In a brief statement, the Brazilian police authority reported that it had served four search warrants in Operation Lucas 12:2, which “aims to clarify the activities of a criminal association constituted for the commission of crimes of embezzlement and money laundering.”

“The investigated are suspected of using the structure of the Brazilian State to divert goods of high patrimonial value, delivered by foreign authorities in official missions to representatives of the Brazilian State, through the sale of these items abroad,” he added.

According to the Federal Police, the amounts obtained from these jewelry sales, including the sale of a Rolex watch received by Bolsonaro when he was President of Brazil, were converted into cash and entered the personal assets of those investigated through intermediary persons and without using the formal banking system, with the aim of concealing the origin, location and ownership of securities.

The local ‘media’ cite the decision of the Federal Supreme Court (STF) judge Alexandre de Moraes, who authorized the operation, in which investigators claim to have identified that Bolsonaro and his assistants removed from Brazil, on the presidential plane, at least four sets of goods received on international trips as head of state.

“The steps taken indicate that Jair Messias Bolsonaro and his team used the presidential plane, on 12/30/2022, to evade the diverted high-value goods from the country, taking them to the United States of America”, says the decision. by Moraes.

General Cid became investigated after the police discovered, on his son’s cell phone that he worked with the former president, evidence that he had tried to sell gifts received from the Saudis by the former president in the United States.

The police also found a photo of a jewelry box taken by the general, in which he appears in the reflection of the object, which is mirrored.

Among the objects that may have been sold illegally are a Rolex allegedly received from the Saudis as a gift, which ended up in the possession of a store specializing in the resale of luxury objects in the United States.

The money from the sale of the watch and some jewelry, according to the Federal Police, was deposited in an account held by General Cid, in Florida.

Lawyer Wasseff, on the other hand, became the target of searches because he would have traveled to the United States to buy the Rolex again so that Bolsonaro could deliver it to the Federal Court of Auditors (TCU), after the body opened an investigation and ordered the return of the watch. object that, according to Brazilian law, should have been incorporated into public property.

The investigation by the TCU and the Brazilian police into valuable items given to the Bolsonaro family by the Saudis began after local media released information about another set of jewelry allegedly sent by the Saudis to former first lady Michelle Bolsonaro, which was withheld at the Revenue Federal of Brazil.

At the time the first case was made public, Bolsonaro said he had neither asked for nor received any kind of jewelry gift from the Government of Saudi Arabia.

In a statement to the Federal Police, the former president claimed to have known about the jewels destined for the former first lady, seized at the Federal Revenue Service, 14 months after the incident.

The revelation of the case motivated a series of investigations that unfolded in today’s action. The name of the operation is an allusion to verse 12:2 of the Bible, which says: “There is nothing hidden that will not be discovered, or hidden that will not be known”.

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