Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro allegedly tried to bring into Brazil jewelry gifted by Saudi Arabia, worth 16.5 million Brazilian reais (almost 3 million euros) without having previously declared them and without paying the corresponding taxes, as reported exclusively by the Brazilian newspaper ‘O Estado de Sao Paulo’.
The former president received from the Saudi authorities a multitude of jewelry, including »a necklace, a ring, a watch and a pair of diamond earrings», in October 2021, as a gift for the then first lady Michelle Bolsonaro, but the goods were seized at the international airport of Guarulhos, in Sao Paulo.
The agents found the jewelry in the backpack of one of the military personnel traveling back to Brazil, and verified that none of the objects had been previously declared to customs, as required by law. The former Minister of Mines and Energy, Bento Albuquerque, tried to recover the jewels on numerous occasions without success.
The Brazilian newspaper states that, in the last two months of Bolsonaro’s mandate, four attempts were made to recover the gifts mobilizing even the ministries of Foreign Affairs and Economy, all failed.
The only way to recover the jewelry would be to pay the mandatory tax for their importation, 50 percent of the value of the good in question, and a fine of 25 percent of the value, for not having been declared from the beginning. The other option would be to declare them as »official gifts to the President of the Republic and the First Lady», but the newspaper explains that in this way they would belong to the State of Brazil, not to the Bolsonaros.
The current minister of the Secretariat of Communication of the Presidency, Paulo Pimenta, has spoken harshly on the subject in his Twitter account: »The report of (‘O Estado de Sao Paulo’) reveals shocking details about how the scheme of bribes, gifts and illegal advantages of Bolsonaro, his family members and close advisors worked. They all deserve to be investigated and punished for the crimes committed».
He has also described the attempts by former minister Albuquerque to recover the jewelry as »shameful and showing the lack of ethics of those who held positions in the government».
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
