Starring the Bolsonaro couple and embellished by military actors, the jewelry scandal includes two extras with the potential to steal the spotlight during investigations: former ministers Paulo Guedes (Economy) and Adolfo Sachsida (Mines and Energy). An authority accompanying the work of the Federal Police informs that there is a great possibility that the duo will be subpoenaed to testify.
Paulo Guedes was the hierarchical superior of the then head of Revenue, Julio Cesar Vieira Gomes, who pressured tax auditors to release the BRL 16.5 million jewelry presented by Saudi Arabia to the then first lady Michelle Bolsonaro. The PF wants to know if Guedes endorsed the subordinate’s pressure. Illegal and fruitless pressure, as the jewels seized on October 21, 2021, when the then Minister of Mines and Energy Bento Albuquerque and his entourage disembarked, remained in the Treasury vault, in São Paulo.
Adolfo Sachsida succeeded Bento Albuquerque, the bearer of Saudi pampering, in the Mines and Energy portfolio. He took office in May 2022, seven months after the airport bust. On an official mission to Saudi Arabia, Bento Albuquerque had received two gifts — jewelry for Michelle, captured by the Revenue’s x-ray, and a package for the president, which escaped inspection. It was in Sachsida’s management that the ministry documented, with 13 months of delay, the transfer of the second package to Bolsonaro.
Investigators disbelieve the information according to which the package intended for Bolsonaro — with a watch, pen, cufflinks, ring and an Islamic rosary — remained from October 2021 to November 2022 in a ministry safe. They suspect that Bolsonaro received the package as soon as he arrived in the country. In this version, the letter prepared under Adolfo Sachsida would be just an alibi to formalize the entry of the goods into the Planalto and the subsequent incorporation of the items into Bolsonaro’s personal assets.
Bolsonaro appropriated the objects in spite of the legislation and TCU judgment, which require the incorporation of valuable gifts to the State’s assets. As if that were not enough, he took the package that entered the country clandestinely without collecting a measly penny of import tax.
Adolfo Sachsida and Paulo Guedes are showcase Bolsonaristas. On September 7, 2021, Sachsida even appeared at the Esplanada dos Ministérios, to echo the chief in protest against the Federal Supreme Court. Ironically, in addition to having a doctorate in economics, Sachsida is a lawyer, specializing in tax law.
Guedes arrived at the Esplanada with the pose of a superminister. He sounded peremptory in his debut speech, in January 2019. He said that Brazilian “creatures from the political swamp, private pirates and corrupt bureaucrats” joined in the “plundering of the State”. He failed to foresee the illegal diamond mining that would emerge in the mudflats.
