New Charges against Flávio Revive Jair Bolsonaro’s 2018 “Forget about my sons” Plea

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – It was January 11th, 2018 when then federal deputy Jair Bolsonaro voiced complaints about an article published four days earlier by the newspaper Folha de S.Paulo disclosing the growth of his and his politician sons’ assets. “You [reporter] have to disclose my assets. Forget about my sons“.

The main article showed how the President’s family had accumulated assets throughout their political career. A separate article was dedicated to Senator Flávio Bolsonaro, his first-born, whose 19 real estate operations attracted greater attention.

This article already included the cash transactions in which the President’s son profited R$813,000 (US$163,000) and, according to the Rio de Janeiro Prosecutor’s Office, laundered R$638,000.

It was not known at the time, but the articles published on January 7th, 2018 by Folha de S.Paulo could be related to a document delivered four days earlier to the Public Prosecutor’s Rio Office MP-RJ: the COAF report describing the suspicious financial transactions of retired State Police officer Fabrício Queiroz, a friend of Bolsonaro and a kind of chief of staff of Flávio’s employees in the Rio Legislative Assembly (ALERJ).

Flávio’s real estate deals became officially known to the MP-RJ on February 6th, 2018, when an attorney filed a criminal notice based on the articles.

The first step of the GAOCRIM (Criminal Origin Assignment Group) was to demand explanations from the senator. He stated that the properties were in poor condition when purchased and subsequently appreciated as a result of the 2014 World Cup in Brazil.

The group, which had the report on Queiroz in hand, shelved the proceedings on the properties in May that year following the clarifications. It overlooked the fact that the real estate transactions complied with the criteria for suspicion issued by COAF, the federal financial intelligence agency.

For almost a year, Bolsonaro’s wish materialized. Flávio’s assets gathered dust in the MP-RJ archives, and the investigation into Queiroz progressed slowly.

The real estate proceedings were only revisited in February 2019. It took over 13 months for the two cases to be linked.

The MP-RJ now charges Flávio with collecting kickbacks of employees’ salaries and, with cash, paying for the purchase of properties “off books” in order to launder the illegal money.

Data from the breach of bank secrecy authorized by judge Flávio Itabaiana in April 2019 provided insight into the reasons for Jair Bolsonaro’s appeal 15 months earlier. As a result of the scope of the measure, it was possible to find that exotic financial practices were not restricted to Flávio’s advisors.

Personal trainer Nathália Queiroz had sustained transfers of 80 percent of her salary to her father, Queiroz, even when she was employed in Jair Bolsonaro’s staff. An employee of Carlos Bolsonaro also drew virtually all of his salary, according to O Globo newspaper.

There are also the checks totalling R$89,000 from members of the Queiroz family, deposited in the accounts of First Lady, Michelle Bolsonaro, the motive for which is still unclear.

In that same January 2018, in Angra, Bolsonaro explained how the family’s staffs were, in fact, only one. “There is no difference. When an employee works for me, he works for both of them too,” said Bolsonaro, in reference to Flávio and Carlos, who had an electoral base in Rio de Janeiro.

Little by little, the investigations uncovered the extensive use of cash to pay for Flávio’s personal expenses and real estate investments. The suspicion is that it is “rachadinha” (salary kickback) money when ghost employees on the official payroll pay part of their salaries to their employer.

Articles in O Globo newspaper point to the use of hard cash in the purchase of real estate by the Bolsonaro family over the years.

The deeds of the transactions point out that the payment occurred “in currency, counted and deemed accurate”, an expression that is often used for settlement with funds in cash.

Folha de S.Paulo asked the President in that interview about the expression in one of his deeds. He said he had never paid for property in cash.

“Take cash and pay? It is usually a DOC (Credit Document). Taking cash is not the case. It could be stolen. I don’t keep money under the mattress at home,” he said. City councilor Carlos Bolsonaro declared he held R$20,000 in cash.

The home in which Bolsonaro lived also falls under the COAF’s suspicious transaction characteristics. The President bought the house in January 2009 for R$400,000 from a company that had paid R$580,000 four months earlier.

The Prosecutor General’s Office opened an investigation into Bolsonaro’s assets in 2015 after an anonymous denunciation. It was shelved without an assessment of the abnormal price variation of the property in a four-month period.

The President’s family financial transactions are still subject to a number of unexplained facts and clear links. The family’s investment in real estate has grown since 2008 when the President marriage with attorney Ana Cristina Valle broke up.

The couple’s dispute even reached the police files, where Bolsonaro’s ex-wife accused her ex-husband of stealing belongings from a private safe she kept at Banco do Brasil with R$200,000 and US$30,000 in cash, according to her.

In the 2018 elections, when she unsuccessfully ran for federal deputy, using her former married name, the ex-wife retracted the allegations she had made against her former husband.

Valle was Carlos Bolsonaro’s chief of staff for eight years at the City Council. The city councilor, investigated under suspicion of employing ghost employees, also kept a private safe at Banco do Brasil.

It was also evidence of ghost employees that led Folha de S.Paulo to Angra dos Reis in January 2018, where they unexpectedly found the then deputy for an interview.

Walderice da Conceição, a.k.a. Wal do Açaí, has been under investigation for over two years in connection with the case. Meanwhile, she is now seeking a position in the City Council of Angra with express support from the President.

To date, the charges filed by the MP-RJ shows a version of alleged crimes committed only in Flávio’s office. The total scenario concerning the family’s activities may only be drawn when and if the investigations reach the whole family, following the President’s logic of a single-family cabinet.

The governmental oversight bodies missed this opportunity in the past. The President can only be investigated for crimes committed in exercise of his office. It will take two or six more years – should Bolsonaro be reelected – for investigators to focus on the father.

Source: Folhapress