Brazil’s Bolsonaro faces probes over Saudi gift of jewels
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Officials from Mr Jair Bolsonaro's administration intervened multiple times to try to convince Customs officers to release the jewels.
PHOTO: AFP
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BRASILIA – Brazil’s Justice Minister asked federal police on Monday to investigate reports that former president Jair Bolsonaro tried to illegally import jewellery worth US$3.2 million (S$4.3 million) given as a gift by Saudi Arabia, as tax officials probe a second present of jewels.
The far-right former president has faced mounting questions over the jewels
According to the newspaper, officials from Mr Bolsonaro’s administration intervened at least eight times to try to convince Customs officers to release the diamond jewellery – a necklace, a ring, a watch and a pair of earrings from Swiss luxury house Chopard – that had been given to the former president’s wife.
Mr Bolsonaro denies wrongdoing.
“They’re accusing me over a gift I neither requested nor received. There was no illegality on my part,” he told CNN Brasil on Saturday from the United States, where he has been living since two days before his leftist successor, Mr Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, took office on Jan 1.
The scandal deepened on Monday when Brazil’s tax agency said it had opened its own investigation over reports that Admiral Albuquerque’s delegation entered the country with a second, previously undetected, set of jewels – also a gift from the Saudi government.
Admiral Albuquerque mentioned the second set of jewels – a watch and a pen, also made by Chopard – in an interview with Estado de Sao Paulo.
“The incident could constitute a violation of Customs law for failure to declare goods and pay the required duties,” the tax agency said in a statement, vowing to take “all necessary measures” to enforce the law.
Brazilian media reports said the second set of jewels had been handed over to the presidential palace’s official collection on Dec 29, 2022.
Under Brazilian law, travellers entering the country with goods worth more than US$1,000 are required to declare them.
The First Family then would either have had to pay import duty on the jewels – equal to half their value – or give them to the presidential palace collection as official gifts to the nation. AFP
