Brazilian Federal Police Raid Bolsonaro’s Home

Former President Jair Bolsonaro being photographed outside of his home after Federal Police conducted a raid, following charges of forging vaccination documents. May 3rd, 2023. Image source: Reuters

Brazilian Federal police raided ex-President Jair Bolsonaro’s home on Wednesday, as part of a wider probe into the status and legality of his COVID-19 vaccination records. The probe has also led to the arrest of his trusted aides and the seizure of his cell phone. 

The raid occurred at Bolsonaro’s home in Brasilia, the capital of Brazil. Relevant courts associated with the investigation served 16 search and seizure warrants and six preventative arrest warrants; the identity of the targeted individuals was not disclosed. 

The probe into the former president’s vaccination records comes after the health records became public in February citing Bolsonaro, who is a Coronavirus skeptic, as being vaccinated. 

The Brazilian police said these operations are part of a larger investigation into a scheme to insert “false data in a national COVID-19 database between November 2021 and December 2022.

Federal Police outside of ex-president Jair Boslonaro in Brasilia, Brazil. May 3, 2023. Image source: Reuters

They add that “because of this, they [Bolsonaro and his allies] were able to issue vaccine certificates and use them to circumvent restrictions imposed by public authorities in Brazil and the US.”

Prosecutors argue that Bolsonaro and his inner circle created false vaccination certificates allowing them to travel to the United States, bypassing mandatory immunization requirements. 

Bolsonaro and his family traveled to the United States in early December. 

In a statement to journalists, Bolsonaro confirmed that a raid took place at his home and assured that he had never taken a COVID vaccine or forged any documents.

“For my part, there was nothing falsified. I didn’t take the vaccine. Period,” he told reporters.

In a Brazilian right-wing television interview, Bolsonaro claimed that “during my (his) visits to the US, not at any moment was a vaccination card required, so there was no fraud on my part”

During his tenure as president, Bolsonaro consistently evaded questions relating to his vaccination status. After such a controversy, Congress placed a 100-year seal of secrecy on his vaccination records. 

His rhetoric and policies concerning the vaccination drive in Brazil drew both attention and criticism, given he stalled the purchase of COVID vaccines and frequently spread misinformation about their effectiveness, at one point claiming that the vaccine could turn one into a crocodile.  

Outside of already pre-existing arrest warrants and documents, the Supreme Court, overseeing the case, released court documents including the arrest of Mauro Cid, one of Bolsonaro’s presidential assistants. 

Police provided evidence that Cid was the mastermind behind registering Bolsonaro as vaccinated on Dec. 21 against COVID-19. According to documents, that entry, first processed at a public health office in Rio de Janeiro, was removed a week later.

Police also arrested two of Bolsonaro’s personal security officers, Max Guilherme and Segio Cordeiro, as part of these operations. They have been charged with the falsification of their own vaccine records before flying to the United States with Bolsonaro. 

Valdemar Costa Neto, the current head of Bolsonaro’s political party (the Liberal Party), wrote on social media: “We trust that all legal doubts will be cleared up and it will be proven that Bolsonaro did not commit illegal acts.”

Apart from these investigations, Bolsonaro also faces a series of other charges and probes, including for spreading election misinformation inspiring the Jan. 8 invasion of Brazil’s Congress, and abusing his office when criticizing Brazil’s electoral system.

The Supreme Court has also inquired into his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, into accusations of spreading misinformation, and a leak of classified information when Bolsonaro claimed that the country’s election agency was hacked to substantiate his concerns on the safety of Brazil’s voting system.

If found guilty of any of these probes, Bolsonaro will no longer be eligible to run in Brazil’s next presidential election.