Brazil's former president Jair Bolsonaro is indicted for money laundering and criminal association over undeclared diamonds from Saudi Arabia
Brazil's former president Jair Bolsonaro is facing possible money laundering and other charges related to undeclared diamond jewellery gifted by Saudi Arabia, local media reported on Thursday.
Federal police accused Bolsonaro, who led South America's largest country from 2019-2022, of money laundering, embezzlement and criminal association, Brazilian news outlet G1 reported.
The case stems from an undeclared set of diamond jewellery worth $3.2 million that was seized by customs inspectors in October 2021.
The jewels were inside a satchel from Bolsonaro's Mining and Energy ministry entourage upon returning from a trip to the Middle East.
Bolsonaro has previously denied any criminal activity in the case.
Federal police accused Jair Bolsonaro (pictured) of money laundering, embezzlement and criminal association
Photo provided by Brazil's Federal Revenue Department showing jewellery which is part of an investigation into gifts received by ex-President Jair Bolsonaro during his term,
Eleven other people were facing charges alongside the far-right leader, including his attorney Fabio Wajngarten.
Wajngarten reacted on X, saying he had been accused of crimes 'for the bizarre reason of having complied with the law.'
Bolsonaro's son, the Brazilian senator Flavio Bolsonaro, also slammed the accusations on X as 'open and brazen persecution' against his father.
Despite the moves by the federal police, Brazil's Attorney General Office has yet to issue any formal charges against Bolsonaro before the country's Federal Supreme Court.
The new accusations represent the latest legal woes for the far-right former leader, who is also under investigation for his role in the January 2023 Brazil Congress attack and faces possible charges for forging Covid-19 vaccination documents to travel.
Jair Bolsonaro retains staunch allegiance among his political base, as shown by an outpouring of support in February, when an estimated 185,000 people clogged Sao Paulo's main boulevard to protest what the former president calls political persecution.
His critics, particularly members of his rival President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's political party, have cheered every advance of investigations and repeatedly called for his arrest.
The 69-year-old former army captain started his political career as a staunch advocate of Brazil's military dictatorship, and was a lawmaker for nearly three decades.
In his first bid for the presidency, in 2018, he was widely dismissed as an outsider and too radically conservative.
But he won a decisive victory, partly because he cast himself as an upstanding citizen following a sprawling corruption probe that ensnared hundreds of politicians and executives.
In his early days in office, Bolsonaro insulted adversaries and garnered criticism for his divisive policies, attacks on the Supreme Court and efforts to undermine health restrictions during the pandemic.
In 2022, he lost his reelection bid in what was the closest vote finish since Brazil's return to democracy in 1985.
Carlos Melo, a political science professor at the Insper University in Sao Paulo, said he doubts Brazil's Supreme Court and the judge overseeing several investigations targeting Bolsonaro, Alexandre de Moraes, will risk sending the former president to prison or imposing other harsh measures.
Bolsonaro led South America's largest country from 2019-2022 (Pictured, Bolsonaro at an event at the Municipal Theatre in Sao Paulo on March 25, 2024)
The objective, Melo said is to avoid instigating supporters of the far-right leader in a year of mayoral elections.
'Moraes and his fellow justices know that prosecuting a former president who remains a popular man would be even tougher in a year like this,' Melo said. 'This indictment is another piece of the puzzle.
'It gives one more problem to Bolsonaro. There will be more.'
Last year, Brazil's top electoral court ruled that Bolsonaro abused his presidential powers in the 2022 reelection bid, which rendered him ineligible to run in any elections until 2030 after he used the state television, government and the presidential palace officials, claiming to foreign ambassadors that the country's electronic voting system was rigged.
