Facing a plethora of potential criminal and civil suits back home, Brazil’s former president Jair Bolsonaro (2019-2023) remains in self-imposed exile in the US state of Florida. He was reportedly planning on coming home soon, but a new diamond-tinted scandal may keep him away for a little longer. The last week in Brazil has been dominated by media coverage of how his former administration dealt with two high value gifts of jewellery from the government of Saudi Arabia.
On 3 March, the national daily O Estado de S Paulo reported that jewellery worth an estimated R$16.5m (US$3.2m) was confiscated at Brazilian customs in October 2021 from a government aide who was returning from a work trip to Saudi Arabia. The diamond necklace, ring, earrings, and watch, from the Swiss luxury brand Chopard, were supposedly gifts from the Saudi government to then-First Lady Michelle Bolsonaro.
Items worth over US$1,000 must be declared to Brazilian customs and incur a 50% import tax. The jewels could have been let in tax-free as a gift to the Brazilian government, in which case they would have become state property. The jewels were seized because the aide, who worked in the ministry of mines & energy and allegedly had no knowledge of what the case contained, failed to declare them to customs at São Paulo’s Guarulhos airport. A minister reportedly declined to register the jewels as a government gift.
Following O Estadão’s initial report, it emerged that a second gift, also manufactured by Chopard, including a watch, cufflinks, and a rose gold pen, valued at some R$400,000 (US$77,000), appears to have been brought into the country from Saudi Arabia by an aide flying commercial without being declared and without customs’ knowledge. This one was held in the ministry of mines and energy and was not handed over to the Planalto presidential palace until 29 December – the last day of the Bolsonaro presidency.
On 8 March, Bolsonaro confirmed to CNN Brasil that this second case was in his possession, while assuring that he had kept the gift in line with the law. “There was no illegality. I followed the law, as I always have,” he told a CNN reporter. Brazil’s federal court of accounts, Tribunal de Contas da União (TCU), determines that a president can only keep gifts of an extremely personal nature or for personal consumption.
Bolsonaro had days earlier rejected any wrongdoing in relation to the jewellery seized by customs. “I’m being accused for a present I didn’t request and didn’t receive,” he said. Michelle Bolsonaro also pleaded ignorance of the jewellery’s existence.
Yet the Bolsonaro government made at least eight unsuccessful attempts to get the jewellery released from customs into its custody, O Estadão reported, through different channels, including the mines & energy ministry and a last-ditch attempt by Bolsonaro himself on 28 December 2022, days before he left Brazil for the US. Various former and current officials appear to be implicated. CCTV video has been discovered of the then mines and energy minister Bento Albuquerque telling customs officers that the jewellery was intended for Michelle Bolsonaro.
The suspicion therefore is not only that Bolsonaro wanted to keep valuable state gifts as his own, but also that he used the state apparatus for personal gain (although in this case, not entirely successfully as he was unable to recover the confiscated jewels). A federal police (PF) investigation has been launched into the irregular handling of the first set of jewellery.
Meanwhile, a deputy prosecutor has requested that the TCU investigate the inappropriate use of the state machine in the case. According to daily O Globo, the petition cites the “true extravagance” of the case and the fact that Bolsonaro won election in 2018 on a platform “defending austerity and public transparency”.
The whole incident has seemingly upset Bolsonaro’s stated plan to return to Brazil imminently. On 7 March, the former president’s eldest son, Senator Flávio Bolsonaro, posted, but then deleted, a social media message saying that his father would return to the country on 15 March.
Flávio Bolsonaro later said that the date of his father’s return to Brazil was “likely but still unconfirmed”, with no precise schedule drawn up as yet. Flávio then told radio station Jovem Pan News that the allegations surrounding the diamonds would not delay his father’s return.
Bolsonaro has given indications recently that he still sees a future for himself in public life in Brazil. The scandal may also affect very early attempts to present Michelle Bolsonaro as a potential presidential candidate for the right in 2026. Michelle Bolsonaro, who is already back in the country, is being introduced into politics through her husband’s Partido Liberal (PL).
But the jewellery scandal appears to be creating setbacks for both Michelle Bolsonaro and her husband. It also adds to the stack of investigations that the former president currently faces, including a plethora of electoral probes that could make him ineligible for holding public office, in addition to an investigation into his possible responsibility in stoking the 8 January riots [WR-23-03]. He could face the threat of preventative detention when he sets foot again in Brazil.
Luxury taste
As president, Bolsonaro cultivated his image as a ‘man of the people’, often photographed eating Brazilian staples in simple joints and rarely seen in formal dress. The populist leader did, however, appear to have a taste for the high life, beyond these latest revelations around his and his wife’s affinity for diamonds. His presidential spending records, released by the government led by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva earlier this year, show the corporate card being used for hotel stays and expensive meals.
Probes
There are now two investigations into the way the gifts were handled, led by customs and by the federal police. At first sight officials in the former government are potentially guilty of failing to declare the gifts on entry and of failing to pay the relevant import taxes. They may also be guilty of seeking to describe the gifts incorrectly as the personal property of the former president and his first lady, Michelle Bolsonaro, rather than the property of the Brazilian state.
A royal call
One of the latest foreign dignitaries to speak with President Lula was the UK’s King Charles III, who held a phone call with the Brazilian president on 6 March. The presidential office subsequently confirmed to the local press that President Lula has been invited to King Charles’ coronation in May but did not say whether he planned to attend or not.
Nearly 20,000 illegal miners evicted
A senate commission said on 8 March that 19,000 illegal miners had left the Yanomani indigenous reserves, leaving a smaller group of around 800 still in place. The government has been seeking to evict the miners amid a humanitarian crisis as the indigenous community suffers from communicable diseases and mercury poisoning of local rivers.
According to Senator Chico Rodrigues, who leads the Temporary Commission on the State of the Yanomani, the indigenous reserve could be free of all illegal miners by the end of March.
Disease and food shortages among the Yanomani community were discovered in January, prompting the newly installed government of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva to declare a humanitarian crisis and send in emergency supplies and medical staff.