A Saudi rolex sold in US mall could get Bolsonaro arrested

RIO DE JANERIO: It has been a bad 10 months for Jair Bolsonaro. He lost reelection as Brazil's president. He was blocked from holding elected office for seven years. Now things could get worse: A potential arrest.
Bolsonaro, 68, has become ensnared in a series of investigations into fraud and election tampering. But one case may pose the biggest threat to the former president in the near term, and it revolves around an alleged scheme that resembles a small-scale mafia scam: selling embezzled watches at a shopping mall in the US.
This month, Brazilian federal police carried out raids as part of an investigation into what it says was a broad conspiracy by Bolsonaro and several allies to embezzle expensive gifts he received as president from Saudi Arabia and other countries. In one case, authorities accuse Bolsonaro's personal aide of selling a diamond Rolex watch and a Patek Philippe watch to a jewellery shop at a mall in Pennsylvania last year. Bolsonaro ultimately received at least some of the $68,000 from the sale in cash, federal police said. Bolsonaro's lawyer defended him, saying that a government panel has ruled that much of the jewellery is Bolsonaro's personal property, not the state's.
But other experts in Brazilian law said that such expensive gifts are state property and that Bolsonaro appeared to be in legal trouble.