RIO DE JANEIRO — Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro was concerned in a scheme to skim salaries of his aides whereas a federal deputy, web site UOL reported on Monday, citing what it stated have been audios of his former sister-in-law explaining his function in the alleged corruption racket.
The scheme, recognized domestically as rachadinha, entails hiring shut associates as workers after which receiving a reduce of their public salaries again from them.
Rio de Janeiro state prosecutors have formally pressed expenses in opposition to federal Senator Flavio Bolsonaro, the president’s eldest son, over his alleged participation in an analogous racket when he was a state lawmaker.
The UOL story, primarily based on audio recordings of Bolsonaro’s former sister-in-law, Andrea Siqueira Valle, supplied by a supply, is the primary time the president has been immediately implicated in a rachadinha scheme, regardless of quite a few awkward questions on his function in Flavio’s alleged racket in Rio. It comes as Bolsonaro is seeing his anti-graft credentials, which helped get him elected in 2018, questioned by a simmering scandal over alleged corruption in the federal government’s vaccine procurement efforts.
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The president’s workplace didn’t instantly reply to a Reuters’ request for remark concerning the UOL story. A lawyer representing Bolsonaro contacted by UOL denied illegalities.
In a single audio recording, Andrea Siqueira Valle explains that her brother, André Siqueira, who was additionally on Bolsonaro’s payroll, was fired for refusing handy again the agreed quantity to the now-president.
“André had lots of bother as a result of he by no means returned the best cash that needed to be returned,” she says on the recording.
“Ultimately, Jair stated … ‘Sufficient. You may eliminate him as a result of he by no means provides me the best sum of money.’”
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Reuters was unable to substantiate the legitimacy of the recordings or the data in the story. Andrea Siqueira Valle declined to remark to UOL, as did a lawyer.
UOL additionally reported that on two separate events, Siqueira Valle informed individuals near her concerning the racket allegedly being run from Bolsonaro’s workplace.
The accusations in opposition to Bolsonaro for allegedly misusing public funds as a federal lawmaker might open him as much as a federal probe. Nonetheless, Brazilian legislation doesn’t enable a sitting president to be charged for any crime dedicated earlier than taking energy. As a substitute, prosecutors would want to attend till the president has left workplace to deliver expenses.
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