Brazil’s former president, Jair Bolsonaro, has never shown much sympathy for prisoners.
“Why should we give those dirtbags a good life? … They should just get fucked, full-fucking-stop. That’s what I reckon,” he once ranted.
Many in Brazil believe those words may soon come back to haunt the far-right populist, amid growing speculation Bolsonaro could be close to arrest thanks to a tangle of criminal investigations and scandals involving luxury watches, phoney vaccination records, a four-star general, a computer hacker and a botched military coup.
On Thursday, Bolsonaro and seven close associates – including his wife and his former right-hand man – were questioned by federal police over a suspected embezzlement and money laundering scheme in which investigators believe expensive gifts from foreign governments were smuggled out of Brazil on the presidential jet and sold in the US. It was the fifth time Bolsonaro – who had already been banned from seeking office until 2030 – had been questioned since stepping down in January after his election defeat to the leftist Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
Eight months after Bolsonaro left power, friends and foes alike are increasingly convinced it is only a matter of time before he is detained.
“People have already bought the beer and the champagne to celebrate and they’re just waiting [for his arrest],” joked Celso Rocha de Barros, a leftwing writer who is among those rooting for that to happen.
In a sign that Bolsonaro’s family is waiting for the same event, albeit rather more anxiously, his son, Carlos Bolsonaro, recently grumbled on social media: “Stop going on about this arrest business.”
Arrest would represent an ironic plot twist in Bolsonaro’s life. He has spent decades posing as an upstanding law and order politician despite longstanding speculation over his family’s mafia ties.
Criminals should “die in the streets like cockroaches”, the former president declared in 2019, the first year of an administration he claimed was corruption-free.
In 2014, while discussing a notoriously overcrowded jail where dozens of prisoners had been killed, Bolsonaro snapped: “If you don’t want to end up there, all you have to do is not rape, kidnap or rob.”
Bolsonaro’s critics have long demanded his jailing for what they consider his reckless and criminal behaviour as president: the explosion of environmental destruction and fake news, his delay in buying vaccines during a Covid pandemic that killed 700,000 people, and his alleged role in Brasília’s 8 January riots.
But the most immediate threat to Bolsonaro’s freedom appears to be a fast-moving scandal Brazilian newspapers call “O Caso das Joias”, which roughly translates as Jewellerygate.
Jewellerygate first made headlines in March, three months after Bolsonaro left office, when a conservative newspaper revealed that in 2021 customs officials had confiscated a €3m (£2.6m) pair of diamond earrings an official had tried to import without declaring. Bolsonaro’s staff unsuccessfully attempted to recover the earrings – a gift from Saudi Arabia reputedly intended for the first lady, Michelle Bolsonaro.
Subsequent investigations led police to conclude that Bolsonaro’s former aide-de-camp and right-hand man, Lt Col Mauro Cid – who was arrested in May as part of a separate investigation into fake Covid certificates – was helping misappropriate expensive presidential gifts from foreign powers.
Those gifts include a diamond-set Rolex and a Patek Philippe watch given by Saudi Arabia and Bahrain that Lt Col Cid is believed to have sold at a Pennsylvania shopping mall for $68,000. The proceeds found their way into the US bank account of Cid’s father, Gen Mauro César Lourena Cid, who served in the army with Bolsonaro in the 1970s. Police suspect the money was then channelled back to Bolsonaro.
Bolsonaro has denied wrongdoing and on Thursday exercised his right to remain silent, along with three of the seven others being questioned. But speculation is rife that Bolsonaro’s former aide, who has reportedly spent 24 hours talking to police over the last week, is helping investigators and has been negotiating a “partial confession” as part of a possible plea bargain. Reports suggest the agreement could involve details of the alleged plot to overturn Lula’s election win and claims Bolsonaro asked a notorious hacker to invade Brazil’s electronic voting system.
In an interview with TV network GloboNews, Lula’s justice minister, Flávio Dino, did not rule out police striking such a deal. “Could there, in theory, be a plea bargain? Yes, of course,” Dino said.
Rocha was convinced Bolsonaro would be convicted over Jewellerygate.
“If the federal police catch you smuggling jewellery like that you’re going straight to jail,” he said. “But God only knows if he’ll do time. He might abscond, there could be some kind of political deal to ensure his impunity. I think he’ll to try to flee.”
Some leftists worry Bolsonaro’s arrest could backfire, allowing him to pose as the victim of political persecution like his mentor and ally Donald Trump. Rocha hoped Brazilian police would bide their time to deprive Bolsonaro a propaganda coup like Trump’s Georgia mugshot.
“I hope he stays at home, playing video games, until the day the police turn up and say: ‘You’ve been convicted and you are under arrest’”.
