Brazilian President Bolsonaro indicted for money laundering from undeclared diamonds from Saudi Arabia

SAO PAULO (AP) — The indictment of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro on charges of money laundering and conspiracy in connection with undeclared diamonds from Saudi Arabia is the far-right leader's second formal charge, and more could follow.

Two sources familiar with the case confirmed Thursday's indictment by federal police, which follows another formal charge in May against Bolsonaro for allegedly falsified his COVID-19 vaccination certificateBoth officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

Brazil's Supreme Court has yet to receive the police report containing the latest indictment. Once it does, the country's attorney general, Paulo Gonet, will analyze the document and decide whether to file charges and force Bolsonaro to appear in court.

The indictment dramatically increases the legal threats facing the controversial former leader, which are applauded by his opponents but denounced as political persecution by his supporters.

Bolsonaro did not immediately comment, but he and his lawyers have previously denied wrongdoing in both cases, as well as in other investigations into the former president. One of them is investigating his possible involvement in inciting the January 8, 2023, uprising in the capital Brasilia that aimed to oust his successor from power.

Last year, federal police accused Bolsonaro of trying to sneaking into diamond jewelry It is said to be worth around $3 million and is selling two luxury watches.

In August, police said Bolsonaro had received cash from the sale of two luxury watches donated by Saudi Arabia for nearly $70,000. Brazil requires its citizens arriving by air from abroad to declare goods worth more than $1,000 and, for any amount above that exemption, pay a tax equal to 50% of their value.

The jewels would have been exempt from taxes if they had been given by Saudi Arabia to Brazil, but they would not have been kept by Bolsonaro. They would have been added to the presidential collection.

The investigation revealed that Mauro Cid, the former aide to Jair Bolsonaro who allegedly falsified his COVID-19 records, sold a Rolex watch and a Patek Philippe watch to a store in the United States in June 2022 for a total of $68,000. They had been donated by the Saudi government in 2019. Cid later signed a plea deal with authorities and confirmed everything.

Flávio Bolsonaro, the former president's eldest son and a sitting senator, said on X after Thursday's indictment that the persecution against his father was “flagrant and shameless.”

In addition to Jair Bolsonaro, police have charged 10 other people, including Cid and two of his lawyers, Frederick Wassef and Fábio Wajngarten, according to one of the sources. Wassef said in a statement that he had not had access to the final report of the investigation and denounced selective leaks to the press about an investigation that is supposed to be conducted under seal.

“I am going through all this just to practice law and defend Jair Bolsonaro,” he wrote.

Regarding X, Wajngarten said the police had found no evidence implicating him. “The federal police know that I have done nothing related to what they are investigating, but they still want to punish me because I provide an unwavering and permanent defense of former President Bolsonaro,” he said.

Bolsonaro maintains unwavering loyalty within his political base, as the outpouring of support in February shows, when nearly 185,000 people blocked Sao Paulo's main boulevard to protest what the former president calls political persecution.

His critics, including members of the political party of his rival, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, have welcomed every step forward in the investigation and have repeatedly called for his arrest.

The 69-year-old former army captain began his political career as a staunch defender of Brazil’s military dictatorship and served as a lawmaker for nearly three decades. When he first ran for president in 2018, he was widely seen as an outsider and too radically conservative. But he surprised analysts with a decisive victory, largely because of the image he projected of himself as an upstanding citizen in the years since a sweeping corruption investigation that ensnared hundreds of politicians and officials.

Bolsonaro insulted his opponents in his first days in office and drew criticism for his divisive policies, attacks on the Supreme Court and efforts to undermine health restrictions during the pandemic. He lost his re-election bid in the closest result since Brazil returned to democracy in 1985.

Carlos Melo, a political science professor at Insper University in São Paulo, believes that Brazil's Supreme Court and the judge in charge of several investigations into Bolsonaro, Alexandre de Moraes, will not risk sending the former president to prison or imposing other harsh measures in haste. The goal, he says, is to avoid provoking reactions from the far-right leader's supporters and thus making the cases against him more politically sensitive.

“This is a municipal election year. Moraes and his fellow judges know that prosecuting a former president who remains a popular man would be even more difficult in a year like this,” Melo said. “This indictment is another piece of the puzzle. It poses an additional problem for Bolsonaro. There will be others.”

Last year, Brazil’s top electoral court ruled that Bolsonaro had abused his presidential powers in his 2022 re-election bid, making him ineligible to run for re-election before 2030. The case focused on a meeting in which Bolsonaro used government aides, state television and the presidential palace in Brasilia to tell foreign ambassadors that the country’s electronic voting system was rigged.