The Dramatic Scandal Swallowing the Bolsonaro Presidency
The scandal most centrally involves Bolsonaro’s eldest son, Flávio, who has long been a state deputy from Rio de Janeiro, but was just elected to the Federal Senate with a massive vote total in the last election. The scandal began with the discovery of highly suspicious payments into and out of the account of Flávio’s driver, a former police officer and long-time friend of the president’s.
Each new discovery has escalated the scandal’s seriousness: One unexplained deposit was found going into the account of Jair Bolsonaro’s wife, Michelle; both the driver and Flávio himself began using highly suspicious maneuvers to try to stymie the investigation; the amounts of the suspicious transfers began rapidly increasing to US$2 million; and then deposits were found going into Flávio’s accounts in small increments of multiple deposits in rapid succession: at times up to 10 cash deposits made within three minutes, the hallmark of money laundering and evading banking regulations.
But two recent events have converted what looked to be a classic scandal of money laundering and kickbacks into something much more ominous and terrifying. Earlier this week, Rio de Janeiro police arrested five members of Brazil’s most dangerous militia, one linked to the 2018 assassination of City Council Member Marielle Franco of the left-wing PSOL party. As it turned out, Flávio Bolsonaro formally praised two of the leading members of that militia; gave an award to the militia’s chief; and, most astonishingly of all, kept the mother and the daughter of the militia chief on his payroll for the last 10 years. That the Bolsonaro family has been discovered to have such close and intimate ties with militias, including the one involved in Franco’s brutal assassination, stunned the country.
