Upon returning to Brazil, Customs agents found the jewelry in the backpack of one of the soldiers who traveled with the presidential entourage. and they verified that none of the objects had previously been declared as legal trademark.
The goods were seized at the Guarulhos international airport, in São Paulo., according to information from the newspaper O Estado de São Paulo that was later confirmed by other media outlets. Former Minister of Mines and Energy Bento Albuquerque tried to recover the jewels without success on numerous occasions.
The Brazilian newspaper affirms that, in the last two months of Bolsonaro’s term, four attempts were made to retrieve the gifts even mobilizing the Foreign and Economy ministries, all without success. The only way to recover the jewels would be to pay the mandatory import tax, 50 percent of the value of the item in question, and a fine of 25 percent of the value for not having declared it from the beginning, the Europa news agency reported. Press.
The other option would be to declare them as an “official gift to the President of the Republic and the First Lady“, but local media explain that in this way they would belong to the State of Brazil, not to the Bolsonaros.
The current minister of the Communication Secretariat of the Presidency, Paulo Pimenta, spoke harshly on the issue on his Twitter account: “The (O Estado de São Paulo) report reveals horrific details about how the scheme of bribes, gifts and illegal advantages of Bolsonaro, his relatives and close advisers worked. They all deserve to be investigated and punished for the crimes committed”.
Likewise, he described the attempts of the former minister Albuquerque to recover the jewels as something “shameful and that shows the lack of ethics of those who held positions in the Government.”
Source: Ambito
