Associates close to the former president — and in all likelihood Bolsonaro himself — have been accused of promoting expensive gifts.
“Every Rolex tells a story,” the watchmaker once said.
This slogan of the Brazilian police is especially true when it comes to the watch with diamonds set in the middle of an investigation into the alleged theft of high-value official gifts through close affiliates of Jair Bolsonaro, and in all likelihood through the former president himself.
The scandal, involving very expensive gifts from Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, a four-star army general, the presidential Airbus and a luxury watch broker in Willow Grove, Pennsylvania, first made headlines in March, three months after Bolsonaro left after wasting power. election.
One of Brazil’s leading conservative newspapers reported that, in October 2021, customs officials at São Paulo airport confiscated a pair of diamond earrings valued at 3 million euros (£2. 6 million) that an army officer traveling with one of Bolsonaro’s ministers tried to import into his backpack without pointing at it. Bolsonaro officials tried, unsuccessfully, the jewelry that was meant to be a gift for Saudi Arabia’s then-first girl Michelle Bolsonaro.
Bolsonaro and his circle of relatives have denied wrongdoing. But the scandal has reached new heights in recent days after federal police requested access to Bolsonaro’s bank records, raising suspicions that members of his entourage had sold official gifts, adding the Rolex, after taking them out of Brazil aboard the presidential plane.
Brazil’s federal police say the white gold Rolex wristwatch, a gift from Saudi Arabia to Bolsonaro in the first year of his 2019-23 term, discovered in a U. S. watch store promises “risk-free transactions” to consumers around the world.
A Patek Philippe watch, which would have been given to Bolsonaro via Bahrain, would have ended up in the same store, while a set of Chopard jewelry from Saudi Arabia would have been put up for sale on an auction site. Chopard pieces — a watch, pen, cufflinks, ring and Arabic rosary — located a customer willing to pay the $120,000 asking price.
But police say the Rolex and Patek Philippe watches were sold for a total of $68,000 through one of Bolsonaro’s closest aides, Lieutenant Colonel Mauro Cid Barbosa, who was arrested in May as part of a separate investigation into falsifying Covid vaccination records. the United States.
Last Friday, Mauro Cid’s father, an army general named Mauro Lourena Cid, became embroiled in the scandal after police launched a series of raids against Bolsonaro affiliates he said were involved in the alleged embezzlement scheme.
Among the accumulating evidence is a photograph taken with a cellphone in which the general’s mirror image is believed to be seen in a black box containing a golden palm tree that the organization is believed to have tried to sell after Bolsonaro won it in Bahrain.
The police operation is called Luke: Bankruptcy 12, verse 2 – a reference to the word of the Bible: “There is nothing hidden that has not been revealed, nor hidden that has not been revealed. The call appears to be a mocking reference to one of Bolsonaro’s main slogans, taken from the Gospel of John: “You will know the fact, and the fact will set you free. “
Eight months after squandering power, Brazil’s former leader is mired in legal difficulties, investigations into his unscientific handling of the Covid pandemic and his alleged role in instigating the Jan. 8 attacks in Brasilia.
On Wednesday afternoon, the former president is expected to be questioned by federal police for the fourth time since January. Meanwhile, the diamond-set Rolex Day-Date found its way back to Brazil, having been purchased through a lawyer close to Bolsonaro’s extended family who flew to the United States to pick up the watch (at a premium price) after the Brazilian government demanded its return.
That lawyer, Frederick Wassef, nicknamed the Angel, denied any wrongdoing. “I’ve never noticed this watch. I’ve never noticed jewelry. Never in my life,” he told a GloboNews reporter, calling the allegations a “total fabrication. “
However, on Tuesday, Wassef replaced his tone by saying he had traveled to the United States to pick up the Rolex for $49,001, with the aim of handing it over to Brazilian authorities. “I used my own money,” he told reporters.
“Everything looks like an Italian comedy,” political commentator Ricardo Kotscho told UOL. “Actually, it’s a tragedy. “