LIMA – The golden statuette of a little horse; two earrings, a ring, a collier; also a gold plated watch. Value: 16.5 million reais, about 3 million euros. It is the latest grain that gets Jair Bolsonaro into trouble. Nothing of criminal relevance, but it turned into a scandal that forced the former captain to flee to the USA and his wife Michelle to an embarrassing denial. Because they were illegally imported into Brazil and because Bolsonaro did everything to recover them after they were seized by the border police. He claimed it was a gift from the Saudi royal family to his wife. He reiterated this in an official letter sent to the Revenue Agency at the end of last year, just on the eve of his departure for the United States three days before Lula’s inauguration as president, a ceremony he ostentatiously wanted to defect to reiterate his denial of defeat.
It could have ended there. But a scoop from the newspaper State of S. Paulo revealed the background of what seemed to be a misunderstanding of the Finance. A brief investigation by the competent ministries and the intervention of the secretariat of the Presidency established that the set of jewels and valuables could not have been the property of the former first lady but belonged to the Brazilian state. It was part of the many gifts that various foreign states offer to visiting delegations and therefore had to be considered public property. They entered by right in the collection that the office of the Presidency acquires and preserves.
The story begins on October 26, 2021. Marco Andrés Santos Soeiro disembarks with the ministerial delegation at Garulhos airport, Sao Paulo. He is stopped at customs. Metal detectors have detected objects inside his backpack. At the check, the set of jewels, the watch, the golden horse jump out. They ask him for explanations and he says they are from Minister Albuquerque. Who is not far away, observes that content and denies it. I’m not his. He says something, he mentions Bolsonaro. But border agents are adamant. The question must be clarified and above all the import tax foreseen must be paid when the objects transported exceed one thousand dollars. It’s a big hit: 50 percent. No one claims them and the precious contents, complete with a Chopard certificate attesting to their authenticity, are seized by the Revenue Office.
A month later the same Albuquerque minister tries to recover them. But he does it off the record. He probes the ground. The answer is negative. L’affair it is now in the hands of the Revenue Agency and the secretariat of the presidency now led by a minister appointed by the new president Inácio Lula da Silva. Jair Bolsonaro is warned but stays away. Michelle probably complains, considers them about her. But she says nothing officially. The former president had not participated in the mission to Riyadh. He had stayed in Brazil. But on December 28, 2022, now defeated and determined to take refuge in Orlando, he tries a desperate move. He writes a letter to the Revenue Agency in his own hand asking for the return of the jewels, the watch and the horse. He claims they are a gift from the Saudi royal family and remembers attending an official dinner at the Riyadh embassy in Brasilia in those days in October 2021.
The coup of State of S. Paulo reveal the truth. She says that the jewels were a gift that the kingdom of the Gulf had wanted to give to the former First Lady and that the young non-commissioned officer surprised at the Garulhos airport had lent himself as a messenger. With the complicity of the then Minister Albuquerque. There are admissions and documentary evidence. But there are also denials. Of Jair Bolsonaro, already grappling with 16 criminal investigations that could exclude him from any future institutional office and therefore also from participating in the next elections. He denies all wrongdoing. “I have been accused of trying to hide a gift that I never asked for or received,” he says. “There was no illegal action on my part.” Denies Michelle Bolsonaro who protests with veiled irony in front of the media noise: “I discover that I have all these jewels. I knew it. My God, how much persistence from the newspapers!”.
She had already ended up in the sights of the press and TV for a salary of around 6 thousand euros (33.7 thousand reais) as president of the women of the Liberal Party. Public money. The same figure received by a parliamentarian. You even deny the former Minister of Mines and Energy.
That box of precious burns. It was released from seizure and now the 30 cm gold horse, the set of jewels and the plated watch are on display among the official treasures of the Presidency.