The scandal of the jewels delivered by Saudi Arabia to Jair Bolsonaro gained a new chapter this Tuesday with the revelation that the former Brazilian president kept another package, different from the two already known. This was revealed by the newspaper Or State of Sao Paulo and his own lawyers later admitted it.
It is a set of watches and gold pieces valued at more than one hundred thousand dollars that the Saudi prince gave him in 2019, according to documents published by the newspaper. This is the third group of jewels linked to Bolsonaro, who In total, he received diamond and gold sets from Chopard and Rolex for almost four million dollars from the Saudi monarchy.two of which were smuggled in.
Bolsonaro’s lawyers admitted the fact in a statement in which they reported that They worked to return to the treasury the jewels appropriated by the presidentwho placed them among his personal belongings and not in the public patrimony.
A Senate commission resolved to investigate whether the case is related to an alleged bribe paid for the privatization of the Petrobras Landulpho Alves refineryin Bahia, sold at half its market value to the Mubadala fund, from the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which has Saudi participation.
Arab gifts
In 2019, his first year in office, Bolsonaro visited Saudi Arabia and received a protocol gift from King Salma Bin Abdulaziz Al Saud as part of his official tour: a Rolex watch with a gold bolster valued at around $70,000, white gold cufflinks , a Chopard silver pen, a diamond ring and a diamond and white gold masbaha (choker).
This gift was officially documented on tour but last year, before leaving office, Bolsonaro signed an official document in which he incorporated these objects into the personal property that he took once he left the Presidency.
The case is added to other sets of jewels granted by Saudi Arabia to the Bolsonaro government in October 2021, during a visit made by its then Minister of Mines and Energy, Admiral Bento Albuquerque, which are being investigated by the prosecutor’s office and the justice of Brasilia. At that time, Albuquerque and an advisor returned from Saudi Arabia to Brazil but were detained at customs for wearing a set of diamonds and jewelry from the Swiss brand Chopard. valued at more than 3.5 million dollars.
The attempted smuggling of the pieces led the Receita Federal (tax authority) to confiscate them to date. Bolsonaro carried out nine procedures and sent advisers to try to withdraw them and even made an attempt through an adviser one day before leaving Brazil on December 30two days before the end of his term.
Bolsonaro’s return
The former president traveled to the United States and announced that he plans to return this Thursday (the eve of the anniversary of the 1964 coup, which he always claimed) to return to the political arena as honorary president of the Liberal Party with a salary of $7,600 a month, the same as a supreme court judge. This is unprecedented value for a political force that receives official party funds.
The former minister Albuquerque initially said that the jewels were destined for the then first lady, Michelle Firmo Bolsonaro, who for her part recently ruled out knowing the case.
On the same flight, Albuquerque managed to enter another suitcase, without declaring, jewelry valued at more than 100,000 dollars destined for Bolsonarowho incorporated them into his personal assets in the Presidency but did not leave them in the public patrimony when he left office.
In this case, Bolsonaro reached an agreement last week with the Court of Accounts of the Union and sent his lawyer to return them to an office of the public bank Caixa Económica Federal so that they can be incorporated into the patrimony of the Brazilian State. The far-right admitted in February that he kept the jewels entered by his minister but nothing said about this 2019 gift made during the tour to Riyadh.
Lawyers Paulo Bueno and Daniel Tesser reported today that the third set of Chopard and Rolex jewelry is in the possession of the ex-president’s file. “They are available to be presented and deposited, if applicable”, they indicated in a statement. The prosecutor’s office of the Court of Accounts requested the immediate return of the jewels to the public patrimony.
