BRASILIA, Brazil—Former President Jair Bolsonaro underwent questioning Wednesday about diamond jewelry gifts when he was in power, as part of an investigation into whether he engaged in any irregularities in bringing the items into Brazil.
Federal police and prosecutors are investigating whether three sets of jewelry brought into the country from Saudi Arabia were public gifts that Bolsonaro improperly tried to prevent from being incorporated into the presidency’s public collection or were private gifts that Bolsonaro tried sneak into Brazil without paying taxes.
Brazil requires its citizens arriving by plane from abroad to declare goods worth more than $1,000 and, for any amount above that exemption, pay a tax equal to 50 percent of their value. The three sets of jewelry would have been exempt from tax had they been a gift from the state of Saudi Arabia to the nation of Brazil, but would not have been Bolsonaro’s to keep….