Federal Police: Bolsonaro ordered fraud in vaccination records

The order to forge the COVID-19 vaccination certificates of onetime Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and his daughter came from the former leader himself, the Federal Police stated. The report accuses 16 people, in addition to Bolsonaro, of crimes linked to the falsification of COVID-19 vaccination records.

At least nine people are alleged to have benefited from a scheme set up by aide-de-camp Mauro Cid, including his wife and three daughters, the former president and his daughter, and representative Gutemberg Reis de Oliveira.

The secrecy on the police report was lifted Tuesday (19) by Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, after sections of the document were published by the private news portal G1 earlier in the day. After the probes were concluded, he said, “there is no longer any need” for secrecy.

“The evidence collected throughout this investigation is convergent in demonstrating that Jair Messias Bolsonaro acted with conscience and will in determining that his aide-de-camp intermediated the insertion of false COVID-19 vaccination data into the Ministry of Health’s systems for the benefit of himself and his daughter,” the text reads.

Bolsonaro has always denied having taken the COVID-19 vaccine. “There is no tampering on my part, there isn’t. I didn’t take the vaccine, period,” Bolsonaro told journalists in May 2023, commenting on the investigations.

Cid allegedly entered false information into the Ministry of Health’s system in order to facilitate entry and exit into the US, circumventing health requirements against COVID-19 imposed by the US and Brazil. Both countries required vaccination against the disease from travelers crossing the border.

In his plea bargain, Mauro Cid confirmed the entire scheme and also admitted to having “printed the certificates and delivered them by hand to then President Jair Messias Bolsonaro,” the police report states.

Bolsonaro left for the US with his family and aides on December 30 after losing the 2022 presidential election. In the report, the federal agents link the falsification of Bolsonaro’s vaccination card with the attempted coup on January 8, 2023, when government headquarters were stormed and destroyed. In the view of police chief Fábio Alvarez Shor, the intention to tamper with the document is linked to a possible request to stay in another country.

“The scheme surrounding the use of the government apparatus for illicit advantages—the insertion of false COVID-19 vaccination data into the Ministry of Health’s systems—may have been utilized by the group, after the initial attempted coup d’état, to obtain the documents required for entry and stay abroad as they awaited the end of the riots staged as part of the new attempted coup d’état that broke out on January 8, 2023.”

The final report should be forwarded to federal prosecutors, who will examine the evidence and decide whether to file charges.

Federal representative Gutemberg Reis said he would not comment until his defense had full access to the case file.