Brazilian Magazine: Queiroz Wrote Michelle Bolsonaro 21 Checks Totalling R$72,000

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – According to Crusoé magazine, the payments made by the former adviser to Senator Flávio Bolsonaro, Fabrício Queiroz, starting in 2011, included at least 21 checks for Michelle Bolsonaro, a fact that conflicts with President Bolsonaro’s version that Queiroz had paid his wife only one check.

The magazine obtained this information by accessing Queiroz’s breach of bank secrecy, authorized by the courts in the investigation into the alleged salary kickback scheme in Flávio’s cabinet, a state deputy for Rio at the time. The statements detail the former adviser’s transfers to Michelle, which total R$72,000 (US$13,000) between 2011 and 2016. By means of a note, the Rio State Prosecutor’s Office said that “the first lady is not part of the scope of the investigations into the practice of splitting.”

When the news came to light in late 2018 that Queiroz had deposited a R$24,000 check for Michelle, Bolsonaro explained that it had involved the payment of a loan of R$40,000 to Flávio’s former adviser.

The check deposit featured in a report by the COAF (Financial Activities Control Board), which listed the payment to Michelle among atypical transactions amounting to R$1.2 million in Queiroz’s account. The document was attached by the Federal Prosecutor’s Office (MPF) to the investigation that prompted Operation Furna da Onça, which eventually arrested ten state deputies from the ALERJ (Rio de Janeiro Legislative Assembly).

According to Queiroz’s statements, Michelle received three checks from the former adviser in 2011, all worth R$3,000. The following year, there were six additional deposits in the same amount. In 2013, there were three checks in the same amount. The highest figure in transactions to the first lady was recorded in 2016, totaling R$36,000 in nine checks.

Queiroz handled R$6.2 million

As well as failing to show any payment from Bolsonaro to Queiroz that would support the loan argument, the former adviser’s financial statements reveal that in approximately ten years he handled an amount far in excess of his income as a State Police officer and employee of ALERJ. Between 2007 and 2018, credits amounting to R$6.2 million were recorded in his account.

The statements show that, of this amount, R$1.6 million were recorded as wages from the MP (State Police) and ALERJ. However, R$2 million resulted from 483 deposits made by members of Flávio’s office staff, which may point to the practise of salary “splitting”. In addition, another R$900,000 received by Queiroz have not been identified.

Money from militia keader’s relatives

Queiroz’s statements also attest to the receipt of amounts from relatives of militia leader Adriano da Nóbrega, praised by Flávio in 2005 and killed in February this year in a clash with police officers in Bahia while a fugitive from justice. The former deputy’s adviser received transfers from the mother and the ex-wife’s accounts, as well as from restaurants connected to the militiaman.

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