RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Fabrício Queiroz, a retired police officer and Flávio Bolsonaro’s chief of staff when he was a state deputy, was arrested on Thursday morning in Atibaia, a city in the interior of São Paulo. Queiroz is under investigation for an alleged salary kickback “splitting” scheme in the Legislative Assembly of Rio de Janeiro (ALERJ).
The search and seizure warrants, as well as the arrest of the retired police officer, were conducted by the Civil Police and the São Paulo Prosecutor’s Office after a ruling by a Rio de Janeiro criminal court judge. The arrest of Queiroz’s wife, Márcia Oliveira de Aguiar, was also authorized.
The former adviser was staying at a property belonging to Frederick Wasseff, an attorney for the Bolsonaro family. According to reports from a caretaker to the police, Queiroz had been staying in the property for approximately one year before his arrest. After being checked at the Forensic Institute (IML), Queiroz was first referred to the Homicide and Protection Department (DHPP) in São Paulo, and from there he was taken to Rio de Janeiro.
The Civil Police is also conducting other searches and seizures, namely on a property in the Bento Ribeiro neighborhood of Rio, where Alessandra Esteve Marins, also linked to Flávio Bolsonaro’s office, is said to live. ALERJ employee Matheus Azeredo Coutinho, former staff adviser Luiza Paes Souza, and attorney Luis Gustavo Botto Maia are also the targets of proceedings.
Flávio Bolsonaro said on social media that he is calm about Queiroz’s detention. “The truth will prevail! Another piece was moved on the board to attack Bolsonaro. In 16 years as a deputy in Rio, there has never been anything against me. All President Bolsonaro had to do was to change everything! The game is rough,” he wrote on Twitter.
Queiroz worked for over ten years – from 2007 to October 2018 – in the office of Senator Flávio Bolsonaro, who was a Rio state legislator for four terms.
Called a friend by the President, Queiroz became known after a report by the Financial Activities Control Board ( COAF) in late 2018 identified numerous transactions totalling R$1.2 million (US$223 thousand) in transfers sent to and from his accounts over a one-year period, an amount that COAF considered incompatible with his income and activity.
COAF also found it unusual that Queiroz received deposits from other legislative staff employees, which suggests the practice called splitting – when civil servants are forced to kick back part of their salaries to legislators who hired them or to their allies. A R$24,000 check made the current first lady, Michelle Bolsonaro, also attracted attention. The President claims that the transfer was the repayment of part of a loan he had made to Queiroz.
Suspicions against Queiroz led the Prosecutor’s Office to open an investigation against Flávio on suspected money laundering and embezzlement. In July 2019, the case was provisionally suspended by the Federal Supreme Court (STF) Presiding Justice Dias Toffoli, who ruled there was a breach of confidentiality in the irregular sharing by COAF of the legislator’s financial information with the investigators. This decision ultimately blocked over 900 such investigations.
However, in late November that year, the full STF decided that this type of procedure was legal, and the investigation against the senator was restarted.
In April this year, The Intercept website released confidential documents and data from the Rio de Janeiro State Prosecutor’s Office (MP-RJ) claiming that Flávio Bolsonaro financed the construction of militia buildings in Rio with public money.
According to the investigators, who spoke to The Intercept anonymously, Flávio would receive the proceeds from his investment in the buildings through transfers made by ex-BOPE (police tactical unit) captain Adriano da Nóbrega – executed in February in Bahia – and former adviser Fabrício Queiroz.
According to the report, Flávio paid the salaries of his staff employees from the budget for his ALERJ cabinet, and Queiroz confiscated approximately 40 percent of the employees’ salaries, transferring part of the money to captain Adriano da Nóbrega, who was known as the head of the so-called Crime Bureau, a militia specializing in murders for hire.
Source: El País