Top court lifts secrecy of probe into Bolsonaro’s vaccination records
Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes decided Wednesday (May 3) to lift the secrecy of the inquiry that led to the seizure of the cellphone of Brazil’s former President Jair Bolsonaro and the arrest of his former aide-de-camp, Colonel Mauro Barbosa Cid.
According to the report provided by the Federal Police in connection with Operation Venire, Cid arranged for the issuance of fake vaccination cards for COVID-19—first for his wife Gabriela Santiago Cid and their two daughters, then for Bolsonaro and his underage daughter. In a testimony held Wednesday, he remained silent before the authorities.
The investigations were based on Cid’s computer and telephone records gathered under another probe, which looks into a live stream during which Bolsonaro falsely linked inoculation against COVID-19 to contamination with AIDS.
This is how federal agents gained access to data stored by Cid through Google and Apple cloud services, boosting the progress of the inquiry. Screenshots of conversations Cid held with a number of people involved were also incorporated into the case file.
Six were arrested in all—military police officer Max Guilherme, Bolsonaro’s security guard Sergio Cordeiro, Sergeant Luiz Marcos dos Reis, former Army Major Ailton Gonçalves Moraes Barros, and Municipal Secretary of Government of Duque de Caxias (Rio de Janeiro) João Carlos de Sousa Brecha, in addition to Cid.
Another 16 were targeted by search and seizure orders, including Bolsonaro, who had his cell phone seized. The cellphone of his wife, Michelle Bolsonaro, was not confiscated.
The agents reported signs that the individuals involved had engaged in criminal association, fraud, and corruption of minors. The Attorney General’s Office opposed the search at Bolsonaro’s home in Brasília, but Justice Alexandre de Moraes authorized it at the request of the Federal Police.
“There is no indication in the records to support that […] the former aide-de-camp could have spearheaded said criminal operation […] without [Bolsonaro’s] knowledge and acquiescence—which can only be ascertained by means of the search and seizure warrant requested by the police,” Moraes wrote in his ruling.
The forgery
To produce the fraudulent records, the former aide-de-camp was assisted by Sergeant Luiz Marcos dos Reis, whose nephew, Dr. Farley Vinícius Alcântara, issued a fake document for Gabriela Cid. He filled out vaccination cards from the Health Department of Goiás state and signed them using his stamp and registration number with the Federal Medicine Council.
Also according to the investigators, images of the cards were sent in PDF format to 2nd Sergeant Eduardo Crespo Alves, so he could enter the data into the system of the Ministry of Health from Rio. The goal was to have the COVID-19 vaccination certificate issued by the ministry’s official smartphone app ConecteSUS.
The attempt failed only because the system showed that the batch of shots allegedly administered had not been distributed in Rio de Janeiro, but in Goiás. This was not enough to stop Cid, however. He contacted lawyer and retired military agents Ailton Gonçalves Barros, who managed to get a vaccination card issued in the city of Duque de Caxias, Rio de Janeiro state.
Next, they managed to send the data through to the Ministry of Health. This allowed Cid and his family to have proof of vaccination issued several times, whenever they were about to travel to the US, it was found.
Jair Bolsonaro
The ex-president came under scrutiny in the case after the Federal Comptroller-General sent an alert to the Federal Police in January 2023. The warning stated that, even though the Health Ministry’s system showed that Bolsonaro had been vaccinated on August 13 and October 14, 2022, also in Duque de Caxias, there was no evidence this had actually occurred.
Then, the federal investigators found that the data had been inserted by Brecha, secretary of government in Rio, on December 21, 2022. The procedure is believed to have been the same for Bolsonaro’s daughter. Days later, the data were deleted by operator Claudia Helena Acosta Rodrigues da Silva, on the grounds that it had been an error.
In the meantime, COVID-19 vaccination certificates were issued for Bolsonaro and his daughter, who traveled to the US in late December. She traveled on December 27, and the former president on December 30. These certificates were allegedly issued and printed out by Bolsonaro’s aide Marcelo Costa Câmara from inside the Planalto presidential palace. The police managed to obtain the location of the devices at the time of use of the ConecteSUS app.
The police report says that “the evidence collected demonstrates logical and temporal coherence from the insertion of false data into the [ministry’s] system all the way to the generation of COVID-19 vaccination certificates, indicating that Jair Bolsonaro, Mauro Cesar Cid, and possibly Marcelo Costa Câmara were fully aware of the fraudulent input of data and did not take action.”
The 114-page-long document is signed by Federal Police Commisioner Fábio Alvarez Shor, in charge of the case.
The other side
On behalf of Bolsonaro’s defense, former press office head Fábio Wajngarten told journalists that the erstwhile president will not testify to the Federal Police until his lawyers are granted access to the case files, which has not yet occurred.
Wajngarten also declared that Marcelo Bessa, one of Bolsonaro’s counsels, has already requested the Supreme Court for access to the files.
Agência Brasil has repeatedly attempted to reach the defense of the other people involved, without success.
