Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro. File
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Brazil’s former president Jair Bolsonaro has been a target for investigations since his early days in office, and the swarm of cases have multiplied since his failed reelection campaign in 2022.

Authorities have been looking into everything from allegations he conspired to incite an uprising aimed at ousting his successor, to questions about whether the far-right leader, sitting astride a jet-ski, harassed a humpback whale.

Police scrapped their investigation about the marine mammal, but already an electoral court ruled Bolsonaro ineligible for years. Other probes still loom large; there are dozens of them that could produce criminal charges at low-level courts, which would afford him the right to appeal any eventual conviction. And the country’s Supreme Court will have the final say regarding more than five in-depth investigations that could land the former president behind bars, under house arrest or cut off from all political activity.

Bolsonaro has denied wrongdoing in all of the cases, and his allies have alleged political persecution, while recognizing the severity of the legal risks on multiple fronts.

Here’s a look at the biggest threats and where they stand.

Bolsonaro has been indicted for directing an official to tamper with a public health database to make it appear as though he and his 12-year-old daughter had received the COVID-19 vaccine in order to bypass U.S. entry requirements. During the pandemic, he railed against the vaccine, characterized the choice to receive a shot as a matter of personal freedom and has repeatedly said he never did so.

The Federal Police accused Bolsonaro of criminal association and inserting false data into public records, which carry maximum penalties of 4 and 12 years jailtime, respectively. It was his first indictment since leaving office.

STATUS: Brazil’s Supreme Court sent the indictment to the prosecutor-general, who is weighing whether to use it to press charges. Local media reported that he was seeking to consult American authorities about whether Bolsonaro used the forged document to enter the country, and that having done so could result in U.S. legal action.

Federal Police have probed whether Bolsonaro directed officials to smuggle luxury jewelry worth millions into Brazil from Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, then acted to prevent them from being incorporated into the presidential collection and instead retain ownership for himself.

Investigators summoned Bolsonaro for questioning in April and August of 2023. He has returned the jewelry in question.

STATUS: The Federal Police indicted Bolsonaro for money laundering and criminal association, according to a source with knowledge of the accusations. A second source confirmed the indictment, although not for which specific crimes. Both spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly.

Federal police are investigating Bolsonaro’s role in a conspiracy to keep him in office after losing his reelection bid to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, including whether he incited the Jan. 8, 2022 riot that ransacked the Supreme Court and presidential palace in the capital of Brasilia. The Supreme Court on March 18 unsealed testimonies from army and air force commanders who had served under Bolsonaro, and both said he actively participated in the plot.

STATUS: The investigation is ongoing, with several Bolsonaro supporters and allies already convicted and jailed.

Brazil’s highest electoral court in June ruled that Bolsonaro used government communication channels in a meeting with diplomats to promote his reelection bid and sow distrust about the vote. The case focused on a meeting the prior year, during which Bolsonaro used government staffers, the state television channel and the presidential palace in Brasilia to tell foreign ambassadors that the country’s electronic voting system was rigged. The ruling rendered him ineligible for office until 2030.

The court also found that Bolsonaro abused his power during Brazil’s Independence Day festivities, a month before the election. The ruling didn’t add years to Bolsonaro’s ineligibility, but made any appeal less likely to succeed. A third case is also pending at the court.

STATUS: Bolsonaro’s appeal of the initial ruling was denied.

Brazil’s Federal Police is investigating Bolsonaro for inciting crimes against public health during the COVID-19 pandemic, which include encouraging people not to wear masks and causing alarm about non-existent danger of vaccines accelerating development of AIDS. A Senate inquiry commission also spent months investigating his pandemic-era actions and decisions, and recommended nine criminal charges.

Brazil’s former prosecutor-general Augusto Aras, widely seen as a Bolsonaro ally, decided not to file any charges based on the lawmakers’ findings. They have urged his Aras’ successor to reopen the case.

STATUS: The investigation is ongoing.

Brazil’s Supreme Court in 2020 ordered an investigation into a network allegedly spreading defamatory fake news and threats against Supreme Court justices. The probe has yielded the imprisonment of lawmakers from the former president’s circle and raids of his supporters’ homes. In 2021, Bolsonaro was included as a target.

As an offshoot of that probe, the Federal Police is also investigating whether a group operating inside Bolsonaro’s presidential palace produced social media content aimed at undermining the rule of law. The group, allegedly comprised of aides and Bolsonaro’s politician son, has been widely referred to as a digital militia and “the hate cabinet.”

The indictment of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro for money laundering and criminal association in connection with undeclared diamonds from Saudi Arabia marked the far-right leader’s second formal accusation with more potentially in store.

Two sources with knowledge of the case confirmed Thursday’s indictment by Federal Police, which followed another formal accusation in May against Bolsonaro for allegedly falsifying his COVID-19 vaccination certificate. Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly.

Brazil’s Supreme Court has yet to receive the police report with the latest indictment. Once it does, the country’s prosecutor-general, Paulo Gonet, will analyze the document and decide whether to file charges and force Bolsonaro to stand trial.

The indictment dramatically raises the legal threats facing the divisive ex-leader that are applauded by his opponents but denounced as political persecution by his supporters.

Bolsonaro did not immediately comment, but he and his lawyers have previously denied any wrongdoing in both those cases, as well as other investigations into the former president. One is probing his possible involvement in inciting an uprising in capital Brasilia on Jan. 8, 2023 that sought to oust his successor from power.

Last year, Federal Police accused Bolsonaro of attempting to sneak in diamond jewelry reportedly worth $3 million and selling two luxury watches.

Police said in August that Bolsonaro received cash from the nearly $70,000 sale of two luxury watches he received as gifts from Saudi Arabia. Brazil requires its citizens arriving by plane from abroad to declare goods worth more than $1,000 and, for any amount above that exemption, pay a tax equal to 50% of their value.

The jewelry would have been exempt from tax had it been a gift from Saudi Arabia to Brazil, but not Bolsonaro’s to keep for himself. Rather, it would have been added to the presidential collection.

The investigation showed that Mauro Cid, Bolsonaro’s former aide-de-camp who allegedly falsified his COVID-19 records, in June 2022 sold a Rolex watch and a Patek Philippe watch to a store in the U.S for a total $68,000. They were gifted by Saudi Arabia’s government in 2019. Cid later signed a plea bargain with authorities and confirmed it all.

Flávio Bolsonaro, the former president’s eldest son and a sitting senator, said on X after Thursday’s indictment that persecution against his father was “blatant and shameless.”

10 others indicted

In addition to Bolsonaro, police indicted 10 others, including Cid and two of his lawyers, Frederick Wassef and Fábio Wajngarten, according to one of the sources. Wassef said in a statement that he didn’t have access to the final report of the investigation, and decried selective leaks to the press of an investigation that is supposed to be proceeding under seal.

“I am going through all of this solely for practicing law in defense of Jair Bolsonaro,” he wrote.

On X, Wajngarten said police have found no evidence implicating him. “The Federal Police knows I did nothing related to what they are investigating, but they still want to punish me because I provide unwavering and permanent defense for former President Bolsonaro,” he said.

Bolsonaro retains staunch allegiance among his political base, as shown by an outpouring of support in February, when an estimated 185,000 people clogged Sao Paulo’s main boulevard to protest what the former president calls political persecution.

His critics, particularly members of his rival President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s political party, have cheered every advance of investigations and repeatedly called for his arrest.

The 69-year-old former army captain started his political career as a staunch advocate of Brazil’s military dictatorship, and was a lawmaker for nearly three decades. When he bid for the presidency for the first time, in 2018, he was widely dismissed as an outsider and too radically conservative. But he surprised analysts with a decisive victory, in no small part due to his self-portrayal as an upstanding citizen in the years following a sprawling corruption probe that ensnared hundreds of politicians and executives.

Bolsonaro insulted adversaries since his earliest days in office while garnering critics with his divisive policies, attacks on the Supreme Court and efforts to undermine health restrictions during the pandemic. He lost his reelection bid in the closest finish since Brazil’s return to democracy in 1985.

Carlos Melo, a political science professor at the Insper University in Sao Paulo, believes Brazil’s Supreme Court and the justice overseeing several investigations targeting Bolsonaro, Alexandre de Moraes, will not risk sending the former president to prison or imposing other harsh measures with any haste. The objective, he said, is to avoid instigating supporters of the far-right leader and so make cases against him more politically sensitive to prosecute.

“This is a year of mayoral elections. Moraes and his fellow justices know that prosecuting a former president who remains a popular man would be even tougher in a year like this,” Melo said. “This indictment is another piece of the puzzle. It gives one more problem to Bolsonaro. There will be more.”

Last year, Brazil’s top electoral court ruled that Bolsonaro abused his presidential powers during his 2022 reelection bid, which rendered him ineligible for any elections until 2030. The case focused on a meeting during which Bolsonaro used government staffers, the state television channel and the presidential palace in Brasilia to tell foreign ambassadors that the country’s electronic voting system was rigged.