This month saw a huge breakthrough in the tragic novela that is contemporary politics in Brazil, with the arrest of a man called Fabrício Queiroz, who had been in hiding for 18 months.
His arrest – at a house belonging to the Bolsonaro family lawyer – is key because, according to prosecutors, Queiroz is the gatekeeper for a raft of corrupt activity committed over the last two decades by members of the Bolsonaro family. He is particularly close to senator Flávio Bolsonaro, Jair Bolsonaro’s eldest son, and could potentially inflict enormous damage on the Presidency.
Fabrício Queiroz’s friendship with the president goes back to 1984, when he served as army recruit under Bolsonaro’s tutelage. After leaving the army, Queiroz joined Rio’s military police. He was well known and feared by residents in the City of God favela (made famous by the film of the same name). One night in 2003, he and a colleague shot and killed a resident while on patrol. A homicide investigation into the incident remains open today.
Queiroz remained firm friends with Jair Bolsonaro following his departure from the army. Numerous photographs of the pair enjoying moments of intimacy circulate on the internet: Queiroz and Bolsonaro fishing; Queiroz, Bolsonaro and sons at a barbecue and Queiroz, Flávio and Jair enjoying a meal together. Queiroz worked for Flávio Bolsonaro for eleven years, between 2007 and 2018, after joining his parliamentary team on secondment from the Military Police. While his role was apparently geared towards providing protection for the politician, Queiroz has also been described as “chief of staff” and “driver”. Essentially, he was Flávio’s protector, fixer and right hand man for more than a decade.
In 2018, a federal government financial intelligence unit tasked with tackling money laundering, identified suspect movements of funds through both Flávio Bolsonaro and Queiroz’s accounts. The monitoring process was an extension of the giant national Car Wash corruption investigation, celebrated by the Bolsonaro family in their electoral pledges to make Brazil corruption-free.
The movements of money in question included 48 separate cash deposits paid to Flávio in a one-month period totalling $30,000 and a single cheque of $8,000 made out to Jair Bolsonaro’s wife. The revelations triggered an inquiry by prosecutors in Rio. This uncovered compelling evidence to suggest that Bolsonaro and Queiroz operated a brazen scheme to embezzle public funds. Evidence so compelling that it apparently drove Queiroz into hiding.
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Damian Platt | Radio Free (2020-06-29T17:49:59+00:00) Are the tables turning against Jair Bolsonaro?. Retrieved from https://www.radiofree.org/2020/06/29/are-the-tables-turning-against-jair-bolsonaro/
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