Bolsonaro home searched as Brazil probes fake vaccine cards

his residence before jumping into a car after Federal Police agents executed a search and seizure warrant in Brasilia, Brazil, Wednesday, May 3, 2023. The Federal Police press office responded to questions about Bolsonaro’s Brasilia house search by stating officers were searching and arresting people involved in the COVID-19 vaccine data scandal.
BRASILIA (AP) Brazil’s Federal Police searched former President Jair Bolsonaro’s residence and seized his phone Wednesday for alleged COVID-19 immunization card fraud. Police raided other sites and arrested six people.

The president and Michelle confirmed the search on their home to reporters and on Instagram, respectively. She denied media allegations that her phone was confiscated.

Bolsonaro will be deposed at Federal Police headquarters and Mauro Cid was detained, according to a federal police official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The Federal Police’s press office responded to Bolsonaro’s house search by stating officers were conducting 16 searches and six arrests in Rio de Janeiro relating to the COVID-19 vaccine’s bogus data. Bolsonaro and Cid were unnamed.

Local media reported changed immunization cards for Bolsonaro, his advisors, and his family. Bolsonaro refused the vaccine for months throughout the pandemic, spreading doubt about its efficacy. That cast doubt on his attendance at the U.N. General Assembly in New York in September 2021.
Bolsonaro assured reporters on Wednesday that he did not adulterate. I refused the vaccine. Never denied.”

The search compounds Bolsonaro’s legal woes. Federal Police have questioned him twice in the past month at their Brasilia headquarters about three sets of diamond jewelry he received from Saudi Arabia and his possible role in the Jan. 8 uprising by his supporters in the capital.

Brazil’s electoral court is also investigating Bolsonaro’s campaign, including his baseless assertions that the nation’s electronic voting system is vulnerable to fraud. Those threaten his political rights and prevent him from running in future elections.

Bolsonaro and his allies are also facing a massive Supreme Court-led investigation into the spread of alleged falsehoods and disinformation in Brazil and a federal police investigation into the alleged genocide of the Indigenous Yanomami people in the Amazon rainforest by encouraging illegal miners to invade their territory and endanger their lives.

The former president denies misconduct in all investigations.

The police statement added that between November 2021 and December 2022, fraudulent COVID-19 data was inserted into immunization cards, allowing them to enter the U.S.

“Ideological agendas” and “sustaining the discourse aimed at attacking the COVID-19 vaccine” were the goal, according to the inquiry.

Despite a lack of medical data, Bolsonaro claimed that hydroxychloroquine may treat COVID-19 for months. The previous president cautioned Brazilians that Pfizer would not be liable for irreversible adverse effects. He also connected the vaccine to AIDS, which doctors and scientists refuted, causing a Brazilian Supreme Court justice to investigate.

Brazil had the second-most pandemic deaths. A legislative probe found Bolsonaro should be charged for mishandling COVID-19 response, including pushing experimental treatments.

After months in Orlando, Bolsonaro returned to Brazil. He attended a huge agriculture expo in the interior of Sao Paulo state this weekend to recover his influence in Brazil.